PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

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PRACTICAL 
PSYCHOLOGY 

®y  ELSIE  LINCOLN  BENEDICT,  M.  A. 

Author  of  "HUMAN  ANALYSIS,"  "HOW  TO 
BE  A  CONVINCING  TALKER,  — IN  PUBLIC 
AND  IN  PRIVATE,"  "HOW  TO  DEVELOP  A 
SUCCESSFUL  PERSONALITY." 


Published  by  J.   F.   ROWNY  PRESS 

Los    Angeles     :    California 

1920 

opog^-oo  oo-^ooo  opog^oo  oo-feooo 


Copyright,  1920 

by 

ELSIE  LINCOLN  BENEDICT 
New  York  City 


DEDICATED 

TO 
MY  STUDENTS. 


PREFACE 

In  every  man  and  woman  there  are  enor- 
mous untapped  resources.  Only  a  small  per- 
centage of  yours  are  being  used.  You  are  like 
a  hundred-acre  field  with  only  ten  acres  under 
cultivation. 

You  are  letting  Discouragement,  Worry  and 
Fear  grip  you  and  ruin  your  life  when  you 
could  be  happy. 

You  are  letting  yourself  get  old  when  you 
could  stay  young  and  attractive. 

You  are  doing  all  kinds  of  things  to  your 
body  that  make  you  ill  when  you  could  be 
well  and  strong. 

You  are  timid  and  self-conscious  when  you 
could  be  radiant  with  self-confidence. 

You  are  a  failure,  financially  and  otherwise, 
when  you  could  be  a  glorious  success. 

But  determination  alone  will  not  do  it. 

Knowledge  has  always  been  necessary  to 
the  accomplishment  of  anything.  The  will  to 
solve  a  problem  is  useless  without  the  know- 
ing how. 


PREFACE 

There  is  a  key  to  successful,  joyous  living, 
based  on  natural  laws.  This  volume  deals 
with  these  natural  laws,  with  special  reference 
to  those  of  biology  and  psychology.  It  puts 
into  graphic,  vivid  form  the  psychology  of  the 
great  universities,  and  applies  it  in  everyday 
language  to  the  everyday  problems  of  every- 
day people.  It  is  the  psychology  of  the  great 
scientists  made  practical. 

THE  AUTHOR. 


CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

PREFACE v 

I.    HOW  TO  BE  WELL 11 

Health  the  real  foundation  of  all  accomplishment — 
Errors  common  to  mankind — Your  body  the  car  that 
must  carry  you  to  destination — Breathing,  its  physi- 
ology and  psychology — Colds,  their  cause  and  cure- 
Eating,  America's  favorite  indoor  sport — Overweight 
and  underweight  and  what  they  mean — Longevity 
and  fat — Foods  for  fat  people — Foods  for  thin  peo- 
ple— Poor  food  combinations — Good  food  combina- 
tions— Constipation — Rheumatism  and  dentistry — 
Biliousness  —  Headaches  —  Sleeping  —  Insomnia  — 
Relaxation — Exercise  for  various  types — The  power 
of  the  mind  over  the  body — The  power  of  the  body 
over  the  brain — Psychology  of  health 

II.    HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 57 

Tests  for  determining  whether  you  are  a  "worrier" — 
Man's  environment  in  his  head,  not  his  house — The 
psychology  of  happiness  and  unhappiness  —  Your 
mental  camera — Your  own  movie  show — The  secret 
of  your  memory  album — Attention  the  keynote — 
Three  kinds  of  troubles — Man's  four  great  fears — 
Laws  of  worry — The  real  difference  between  the 
happy  man  and  the  unhappy  man — Two  men  in 
prison  —  Worry  a  black  nothingness  —  Entertaining 
your  enemies  —  Twain's  story  for  worriers  —  Bury 
your  past  and  don't  visit  the  grave — Yesterday  and 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

Tomorrow,  the  thieves  between  which  man  is  cruci- 
fied— Living  in  the  Now — Your  mental  powerhouse — 
Rules  for  overcoming  worry. 

III.  HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT.  ...    114 

The  cost  of  self-consciousness  —  Self-consciousness 
and  suggestion — Two  young  men  —  The  world  and 
your  valuation  of  yourself — Every  man  telling  his 
own  story — The  psychology  of  timidity — Lovemak- 
ing  and  advertising — Mistakes  of  parents — Children 
and  self-confidence — Three  laws  of  self-confidence — 
Munsterberg's  advice — The  timid  man  and  the  aggres- 
sive man — Napoleon — William  James  on  our  unde- 
veloped personal  resources — Visualization  and  self- 
confidence  —  Rules  for  acquiring  self-confidence  — 
Evolution  and  self-confidence  —  Two  pictures — Self- 
confidence  and  other  people's  opinions — Air  castles 
—  The  psychology  of  self-confidence  at  Verdun  — 
Cause  and  cure  of  self-consciousness. 

IV.  HOW  TO  STAY  YOUNG 159 

Ancient  and  modern  opinions  about  the  prolongation 
of  youth — "Fountains  of  Eternal  Youth" — Susan  B. 
Anthony,  LaPlace,  Gladstone,  Rodin,  Ho  wells,  Barr, 
Wilcox,  Bernhardt,  examples  of  the  prolongation  of 
youth — The  causes  of  old  age — Old  age  and  the  sub- 
conscious— Popular  preparations  for  old  age — The 
story  of  the  bride — Clothes  and  old  age — Old  age 
and  fixity  of  habits — Old  age  and  conservatism — Man 
never  more  than  two  years  old — Life  a  renewing 
process — "New  cells  for  old" — The  psychology  of 
age — Youth  and  humor — Our  consciousness  of  the 
passage  of  time — Rules  for  prolonging  youth — Mary 
C.  C.  Bradford's  formula  —  The  four  mental  states 
producing  age — The  secret  of  vitality, 
viii 


CONTENTS 
V.    HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY  188 

The  importance  of  memory — Identity  and  memory — 
The  "picture  gallery  of  your  mind" — Social,  domes- 
tic, professional  and  business  requirements  of  mem- 
ory —  Memory  and  the  public  speaker  —  What  to 
remember — Memory  and  success — The  four  genera- 
tions, Desire,  Interest,  Attention,  Memory — Self-inter- 
est and  memory — Attention  and  its  significance  in 
memory  —  Al  Jennings'  story — The  Jester  murder 
case — Memory  and  court  testimony — The  mystery  of 
the  girl  who  remembered  Greek — The  psychology  of 
"lost"  memories — College  debates  and  memory — 
Three  laws  of  memory — The  psychology  of  associa- 
tion— Memory  your  servant — Five  rules  for  remem- 
bering names  and  faces — The  treasure  vault  of  mem- 
ory and  its  lost  combination. 

VI.    HOW  TO  BUILD  WILL  POWER.  ...  235 

Will  power  and  its  value — Not  more  will  power  but 
more  use  of  what  you  have — The  two  great  classes 
of  wills — The  eight  subdivisions — The  inactive  will 
and  its  consequences — Impulsive  wills — Over-active 
wills — The  discouraged  will — Will  power  and  emo- 
tion— Vacillating  wills — Penny-in-the-slot  wills — Pur- 
posive wills  and  their  psychology — Carrie  Chapman 
Catt  and  the  purposive  will — The  power  of  desire — 
Laws  for  building  will  power  —  Non-essentials  and 
will  power — Concentration  and  will  power — Habit 
and  will  power — Twenty-five  rules  for  building  will 
power — Friends  and  your  will — Locking  your  mind — 
Doing  the  disagreeable — A  day  at  a  time,  not  "for- 
everness" — What  to  do  when  you  fail — What  to  do 
when  you  win — When  to  yield. 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
VII.    HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 273 

Universal  desire  for  money  vs.  the  universal  pre- 
tenses to  the  contrary — Being  honest  about  our 
money  ambitions — The  fallacy  of  poverty's  "lure" — 
The  rich  man  who  would  "like  to  be  poor  again" — 
Evolution  and  our  money-needs — Money  and  martyrs 
— The  importance  of  keeping  abreast  of  your  time — 
The  psychology  of  money-making — What  is  an  idea 
worth? — Initiative  and  its  place  in  money-making — 
Capitalizing  your  strong  points — Worry  and  money- 
making — Clothes  and  money-making — Opinions  of 
rich  men — The  psychology  of  poverty — Money-mak- 
ing and  its  rules. 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

"The  man  with  educated  bowels  will  eclipse 
the  man  with  educated  brains,  but  why  not 
have  both?" 

ELBERT  HUBBARD. 

VERY  human  being  has  a  right  to 
a  strong,  healthy  body.  Nature 
starts  ninety-nine  per  cent  of  us 
with  good  working  capital,  and  we 
proceed  to  do  what  people  usually  do  who 
inherit  wealth, — squander  it  extravagantly 
and  as  a  result  are  physical  bankrupts  early 
in  life. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  diseases, — organic 
and  functional. 

Organic  diseases  are  those  like  tuberculosis, 
in  which  there  is  actual  destruction  of  tissue. 
Functional  diseases  are  those  like  constipation, 
in  which  there  is  no  actual  loss  of  tissue,  but 
in  which  some  organ  fails  to  perform  its 
natural  function. 

The  average  individual  pays  large  doctors' 
bills  each  year  for  having  some  one  with 
an  M.  D.  help  him  get  over  such  ailments  as 
constipation,  neuralgia,  headaches,  insomnia, 

11 


PSYCHOLOGY 

— things  that  arise  simply  from  slovenly  in- 
ternal housekeeping. 

By  following  the  sane,  simple  rules  laid 
down  in  this  lesson,  the  average  man  and 
woman  may  get  and  keep  good  health  through 
a  long  life. 

"Be  first  of  all  a  healthy  animal."  Your 
success  and  happiness  depend  more  upon 
your  health  than  upon  anything  else  in  the 
world.  It  is  the  real  foundation  upon  which 
the  structure  of  your  life  rests.  If  you  are 
thoroughly  well,  no  hardship,  no  sorrow,  no 
misfortune  is  great  enough  to  conquer  you. 
If  you  are  sick,  no  amount  of  wealth  can  make 
you  happy.  Yet  the  average  man  neglects 
this  greatest  of  all  treasures.  He  eats  any- 
thing that  tastes  good;  he  eats  large  amounts 
of  food  at  one  sitting;  he  breathes  any  kind 
of  air  that  happens  to  be  around  him,  and  uses, 
on  an  average,  about  one-third  of  his  lung 
capacity. 

Man  can  live  only  four  and  one-half  min- 
utes without  air;  he  has  been  known  to  live 
forty  days  without  food.  Most  people  almost 
forget  to  breathe  but  imagine  they  feel  them- 
selves getting  weak  if  they  miss  "three 
squares"  a  day. 

Exercise  in  some  form  is  necessary  to  the 
health  of  every  individual.  Motion  must  be 

12 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

made  to  balance  emotion  if  you  are  to  stay 
well. 

But  most  people  do  not  know  this.  The 
man  who  leads  a  sedentary  life  during  the  day 
finds  sedentary  amusement  in  the  evening  at 
the  theatre,  or  by  other  indoor  diversions. 

The  average  individual  drinks  about  four 
glasses  of  water  each  24  hours,  forgetting  that 
next  to  air  water  is  the  greatest  physical  neces- 
sity, since  almost  70  per  cent  of  the  human 
body  is  water.  Instead  of  getting  a  sane 
amount  of  sleep  he  goes  to  bed  when  there  is 
no  other  place  to  go  and  takes  a  chance  on 
feeling  all  right  the  next  day. 

No  one  can  be  blamed  for  this  state  of  affairs. 
As  long  as  men  and  women  follow  lines  of 
work  for  which  they  are  not  fittted  they  will 
hate  their  work,  and  the  man  who  hates  his 
work  feels  that  his  real  life  is  lived  between 
office-closing  time  in  the  evening  and  office- 
opening  time  next  morning.  He  feels  that  his 
only  chance  for  happiness  is  during  these 
hours,  and  uses  them  accordingly.  That  this 
unfits  him  for  promotion,  cheats  him  out  of 
his  chances,  robs  him  of  the  opportunity  to 
find  his  right  place  are  facts  which  short-sight- 
ed man  fails  to  see  until  it  is  too  late. 

Some  day  the  knowledge  of  how  to  be  well, 
13 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

get  well  and  stay  well  will  be  disseminated  by 
our  government  as  one  of  the  highest  duties 
the  people  can  perform  for  their  own  preserva- 
tion and  efficiency.  Children  will  be  taught 
the  rules  for  healthful  eating,  drinking,  sleep- 
ing, exercising  and  breathing  before  their  A, 
B,  C's.  What  Johnny  gets  into  his  stomach 
will  be  recognized  as  of  equal  importance  with 
what  he  is  getting  into  his  head,  because  the 
proper  functioning  of  Johnnie's  head  is  largely 
dependent  upon  the  proper  functioning  of 
Johnnie's  stomach.  Some  day  we  will  recog- 
nize that  what  Johnnie  drinks  is  as  important 
as  what  Johnnie  thinks.  You  can't  divorce 
your  body  from  your  brain.  They  rise  or  fall 
together.  Your  mind  manifests  itself  through 
your  body.  It  is  the  house  in  which  it  dwells. 
Because  it  so  vitally  affects  your  mind,  this 
first  lesson  in  psychology,  "the  science  of  the 
human  mind,"  must  be  devoted  to  your  physi- 
cal condition. 

We  all  want  to  get  somewhere.  We  each 
have  a  destination  in  view.  Your  body  is  the 
car  that  must  carry  you  there.  You  are  hi  a 
race, — the  race  of  life, — in  which  competition 
is  keen  and  getting  keener  every  day.  No  sane 
driver  would  run  on  the  rims  or  (ill  the  gaso- 
line tank  with  adulterated  stuff.  Yet  most  of 

14 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

the  failures  in  this  race  of  life  are  doing  these 
very  things.  Then  they  wonder  why  they  are 
outdistanced. 

In  this  chapter  I  am  going  to  give  you  the 
sensible,  scientific  rules  by  which  you  can  keep 
your  car  in  good  running  order. 

BREATHING 

First  of  all, — breathe.  Your  lungs  are  your 
bellows  and  you  must  keep  them  full  of  air 
just  as  the  blacksmith  does  when  he  is  forging. 
It  takes  white  heat  to  forge  anything  worth 
while.  Your  mind  is  a  dull  ember  when  your 
lungs  are  half  empty.  To  breathe  right  all  you 
have  to  do  is  to  raise  your  chest.  Don't  throw 
your  shoulders  back  violently  or  make  hard 
work  of  it.  Simply  keep  your  chest  up. 
Nature  does  everything  else.  Because  your 
breathing  is  the  most  important  thing  she  does 
not  attempt  to  leave  it  to  you.  She  keeps  your 
lungs  going  just  as  she  does  your  heart.  In 
return  for  her  care  the  least  you  can  do,  and 
in  fact  all  she  asks  you  to  do,  is  this:  lift  your 
chest  and  keep  it  lifted,  so  that  the  thorax,  the 
little  room  inside  your  ribs,  is  not  too  cramped 
for  expansion. 

Oxygen  is  necessary  to  the  life  of  every 
organism,  from  blades  of  grass  to  human 

15 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

beings,  and  oxygen  can  only  be  had  in  fresh 
air.  See  to  it  that  the  air  you  breathe  is  as 
fresh  as  possible.  I  do  not  mean  that  you 
should  be  fanatical  about  this  or  anything  else. 
Don't  be  freakish  and  try  to  live  exclusively 
out  of  doors.  Man  has  lived  for  so  many  cen- 
turies in  houses  he  is  no  longer  able  to  cope 
with  the  elements  barehanded.  But  circulat- 
ing air  that  is  not  too  warm  is  absolutely  es- 
sential to  physical  and  mental  efficiency. 

This  is  practical  psychology,  so  do  not 
go  to  extremes.  Do  not  freeze  in  order  to  have 
fresh  air.  Have  your  rooms  comfortable  but 
be  sure  of  proper  ventilation.  Windows 
slightly  open  at  opposite  ends  of  your  house 
or  room  will  insure  this.  It  is  a  bromide  to  say 
"sleep  with  windows  wide  open,"  but  it  is 
necessary  to  repeat  it  often.  Your  health  is 
measured  by  the  proportion  of  new  fresh  cells 
in  your  body  to  the  diseased  and  dying  cells. 
Every  time  you  take  a  lungful  of  fresh  air  it 
produces  twenty  million  new  red  corpuscles 
for  your  blood  and  carries  away  as  many  dead 
ones. 

While  we  are  on  the  subject  of  breathing, 
do  not  overlook  the  fact  that  your  breathing 
and  your  mental  state  are  closely  related. 
Fear,  anger,  jealously,  worry  and  all  negative 

16 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

mental  attitudes  are  conducive  not  only  to  the 
stooping  posture  but  to  deficient  breathing. 

An  inkling  of  this  relationship  was  had  by 
the  ancients.  For  centuries  it  was  believed  that 
the  breath  was  an  expression  of  the  soul.  Some 
occult  religions  of  today  are  founded  on  this. 
There  is  at  least  this  to  be  said  for  them:  your 
efficiency  as  a  human  machine  is  largely  de- 
termined by  your  intake  of  air,  and  whether 
your  breathing  is  or  is  not  related  to  the  soul, 
it  certainly  is  the  infallible  indication  of  the 
state  of  your  mind.  Joy,  happiness,  exulta- 
tion are  expressed  by  the  long,  deep  breath, 
while  their  opposites  instantly  cause  a  short- 
ening of  breath,  choking  or  sobbing. 

As  a  mechanical  aid  to  composure  and  to 
rid  yourself  of  any  negative  mental  attitude 
try  forcing  yourself  to  take  deep  breaths  of 
fresh  air  at  your  open  window.  You  will 
be  surprised  at  the  change  it  will  make  in 
your  feelings  in  five  minutes. 

Whenever  you  are  in  a  tight  place,  when- 
ever you  are  facing  any  critical  situation, 
watch  your  breath.  Keep  your  lungs  full, 
your  chest  up,  your  chin  out,  your  head 
high,  and  see  what  wonders  it  will  do  for  you. 

Breathing  impure  air  powerfully  and  harm- 
fully affects  the  mind.  Oxygen  feeds  the  fires 

17 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
which  burn  up  the  poisons  of  the  body.  When 
these  poisons  are  not  properly  burned  up  (ox- 
idized) they  remain  in  the  system  to  depress 
both  mind  and  body.  If  you  want  rapid  and 
healthful  mind  action  you  must  have  oxygen 
in  your  lungs.  There  is  an  old  saying  that  deep 
breathing  brings  deep  thinking  and  shallow 
breathing  shallow  thinking.  Despondency, 
the  "blues"  and  melancholia  are  characteristic 
of  people  who  breathe  only  with  the  upper 
part  of  their  lungs. 

Clear  thinking  is  possible  only  when  good 
blood  is  circulating  at  a  good  rate  through 
the  brain.  Deep  breathing  not  only  purifies 
the  blood  but  pushes  it  rapidly  through  the 
brain. 

COLDS 

The  old  idea  that  colds  come  from  draughts 
is  today  largely  discredited.  If  your  body  is 
in  a  healthy  condition  draughts  will  not  give 
you  colds.  Outright  exposure  will,  but  mov- 
ing air  is  healthful,  not  harmful.  You  catch 
some  of  your  colds  from  sitting  in  air  that  is 
not  in  motion,  air  laden  with  impurities,  when 
your  physical  health  is  at  a  low  ebb  of  resist- 
ance. 

Right  here  is  perhaps  the  best  place  to  tell 
you  exactly  what  causes  most  of  your  colds. 

18 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

That  cause  is  constipation,  and  constipation 
comes  from  wrong  eating.  Nothing  short  of 
a  blizzard  or  a  drenching  rain  will  give  you  a 
cold  unless  you  are  constipated.  If  you  are 
constipated,  not  even  a  draught  is  necessary. 

You  "catch  cold"  from  the  poison  which 
your  clogged-up  colon  sends  throughout  your 
body.  Therefore,  reverse  the  process  when 
you  get  a  cold  and  stop  eating;  take  an  enema 
to  rid  the  system  of  the  poison  already  banked 
up,  and  give  the  system  a  chance  to  clear  it- 
self of  debris  by  not  putting  any  more  food 
into  it. 

Mest  food  is  thirty-five  per  cent  poison,  and 
as  such,  has  to  be  disposed  of.  A  cold  is  un- 
mistakable evidence  that  your  body  is  already 
overloaded  with  poisonous  materials.  Give  it 
a  chance  to  "clear  the  decks." 

Don't  let  your  friends  tell  you  that  you 
"must  eat  to  keep  up  your  strength."  If  you 
stopped  eating  at  this  moment,  did  not  eat 
a  mouthful  for  a  week,  and  took  nothing  into 
your  stomach  but  water,  you  would  have 
plenty  of  strength  for  carrying  on  any  ordi- 
nary work.  When  this  is  true  of  the  man 
who  works  you  can  see  how  exaggerated  are 
our  notions  about  the  necessity  of  eating. 

Any   person  in   average   health  has   suffi- 
19 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

cient  "strength"  already  stored  up  in  his 
system  to  carry  him  safely  through  several 
days  of  fasting.  The  man  with  a  cold,  there- 
fore, does  not  need  more  strength,  but  less 
poison.  Nature  is  a  marvelous  restorer.  She 
disposes  of  unbelievable  quantities  of  poisons 
when  given  the  chance.  But  if  you  eat  when 
you  have  a  cold  you  are  shoveling  debris  into 
the  front  door  faster  than  she  can  carry  it  out 
at  the  rear. 

The  old  saying  "stuff  a  cold  and  starve  a 
fever"  is  used  in  the  opposite  sense  from  what 
was  meant  originally.  The  original  saying 
was:  "If  you  stuff  a  cold  you  will  have  to 
starve  a  fever," — it  being  well  known  that  a 
neglected  cold  sometimes  leads  to  a  fever. 

LaGrippe  is  a  cold  in  an  exaggerated  form. 
The  devastating  Spanish  Influenza  is  the  same 
thing  carried  to  "the  third  degree"  and  is  noth- 
ing more  nor  less  than  LaGrippe  in  a  malig- 
nant form.  It  is  now  well  known  that  not  a 
trick  of  Fate,  but  the  condition  of  the  colon 
and  intestines,  largely  determined  whether  or 
not  one  had  the  "flu."  That  the  "flu"  was 
somewhat  infectious  cannot  be  denied,  but 
whether  or  not  one  "caught"  it  depended  on 
the  condition  of  his  colon  and  intestines. 

The  time  is  coming  when  instead  of  sym- 
20 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

pathizing  with  the  individual  who  has  a  cold 
we  shall  recognize  that  he  is  unclean  internally 
and  deserving  of  the  same  opprobrium  as  the 
man  who  is  unclean  externally. 

Sleeping  out  of  doors,  exercise  in  the  open 
air  and  the  avoidance  of  too  much  protein  food 
are  other  means  for  avoiding  colds. 
EATING 

Baseball  may  be  the  favorite  outdoor,  but  .' 
eating  is  the  favorite  indoor  sport  of  Ameri- 
cans. 

It  is  estimated  that  the  average  man  and 
woman  in  this  country  eats  twice  the  amount 
of  food  necessary  for  health,  while  many,  es- 
pecially among  the  well-to-do,  eat  five  times 
as  much.  Until  people  realize  the  danger  in 
this  procedure  they  will  continue  to  do  so  be- 
cause they  have  the  greatest  urge  toward  it. 

All  instincts  are  hard  to  combat  because 
they  are  so  deeply  imbedded  in  the  nature  of 
the  race.  The  instinct  of  assimilation  is  the 
first  and  foremost  instinct  in  every  living  cell 
and  it  takes  will  power  to  restrict  it  when  the 
means  for  gratifying  it  are  at  hand. 

"We  dig  our  graves  with  our  teeth"  has 
often  been  said  of  us.  Certain  it  is  that  we 
eat  our  way  to  our  graves.  A  long  life  never 
comes  to  the  glutton,  in  fact  the  "longness"  of 

21 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

your  life  is  largely  dependent  on  the  "short- 
ness" of  your  food  supply. 

It  is  now  an  accepted  theory  that  many  of 
our  diseases  arise  from  putrefaction  of  protein 
in  the  colon.  Meat  carries  a  large  amount  of 
protein  and  contains  other  elements  which  de- 
compose quickly. 

Stop  and  think  what  begins  to  happen  to  an 
animal  the  instant  it  is  killed.  It  begins  to 
putrefy,  doesn't  it?  All  meat,  therefore,  is 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  decaying  animal 
matter  and  forms  debris  which  is  expunged 
from  the  system  at  great  expense  of  energy. 

Scientists  show  us  the  proof  that  man 
was  not  originally  a  carnivorous  (flesh-eating) 
animal.  Man  lived  on  fruits,  nuts,  grains  and 
vegetables  for  the  first  few  millions  of  years 
that  he  inhabited  the  globe.  Proof  of  this  is 
seen  in  the  length  of  his  colon  and  the  nature 
of  his  teeth. 

Dogs  and  all  flesh-eating  creatures  are 
created  with  the  short  colon  adapted  to  the 
rapid  expulsion  of  poison  from  the  sys- 
tem. They  also  have  the  fang-like,  deep- 
rooted  teeth  necessary  for  biting  and  chewing 
meat.  The  human  colon  is  very  long,  thus 
necessitating  much  roughage  in  the  diet.  If 
much  meat  and  other  concentrated  foods  are 

22 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

eaten,  to  the  exclusion  of  fibrous  foods,  their 
poisons,  instead  of  being  expelled,  bank  up  in 
the  colon,  causing  various  ailments. 

You  may  say  you  "need  meat  to  keep  up 
your  strength. "  Look  at  the  horse.  He  is  the 
strongest  animal  known.  He  has  done  more 
of  the  world's  manual  work  than  all  men  and 
all  other  animals  combined.  Yet  he  lives  ex- 
clusively on  "greens,"  fodder  and  cereals. 

Overeating  is  an  expensive  pleasure,  and 
an  even  greater  expense  to  your  body  than  to 
your  purse.  In  addition  to  the  diseases  it 
brings,  it  steals  your  energy.  It  saps  your  en- 
thusiasm. It  makes  you  a  slow  mover  and  a 
slow  thinker.  It  makes  you  lazy  mentally  and 
physically.  Every  ounce  of  food  over  the 
amount  necessary  to  the  upkeep  of  the  body 
is  a  drain  on  the  entire  system. 

The  "sleepiness"  you  feel  after  a  heavy 
meal  is  only  your  brain's  inability  to  "think." 
It  can't  "think"  because  when  your  stomach 
has  that  big  load  to  dispose  of  it  sends  out 
emergency  calls  to  other  parts  of  the  body  for 
their  "reserves"  of  blood.  Your  head,  being 
one  of  the  extremities,  is  one  of  the  first  to 
respond  to  the  call.  Your  brain  and  stomach 
can't  work  at  the  same  time.  When  your 

23 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

stomach  is  digesting  meat  and  potatoes  your 
brain  won't  digest  ideas. 

Those  who  have  brain  work  to  do  in  the 
afternoons  should  eat  light  lunches.  All  pub- 
lic speakers  have  learned  that  they  must  eat  a 
light  evening  meal,  or  preferably  no  food  at 
all  for  several  hours  prior  to  appearing  before 
an  audience.  Many  a  "heavy  speech"  is 
caused  by  a  "heavy  dinner." 

The  greatest  food  scientist  of  the  world  was 
born  in  Italy  in  the  fifteenth  century.  His 
name  was  Luigi  Cornaro.  At  40  his  physi- 
cians gave  him  up  to  die. 

He  was  determined  to  cheat  Death  and 
began  to  study  life  scientifically.  He  discov- 
ered that  the  stomach  was  the  crucial  point, 
and  he  controlled  his  fate  by  controlling  his 
stomach.  He  lengthened  his  life  to  103  years, 
more  than  sixty  happy,  successful  years  over 
the  allotted  time. 

He  did  it  by  eating  very  sparingly.  Twelve 
ounces  of  solid  food  and  fourteen  ounces  of 
unfermented  fruit  juice  were  all  he  allowed 
himself  per  day.  Every  few  months  he  went 
on  a  fast  of  several  days, — gave  his  stomach 
a  chance  to  rest  for  a  new  start, — and  wrote 
best  during  these  days  when  he  had  no  food 
whatever. 

24 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

Metchnikoff,  the  renowned  French  scientist, 
declared  that  95  per  cent  of  all  human  diseases 
come  from  putrefaction  in  the  alimentary 
canal;  that  it  is  the  "breeding  ground"  for  most 
of  our  troubles. 

E.  E.  Rittenhouse,  Commissioner  of  Conser- 
vation for  the  Equitable  Life  Assurance  So- 
ciety, said  in  a  speech  at  the  Hotel  Astor,  New 
York:  "The  average  American  would  not 
think  of  mixing  bricks  or  scrap-iron  or  gravel 
with  the  fuel  for  his  furnace,  yet  he  feeds  his 
stomach  with  tasty  junk,  much  of  which  can- 
not be  digested.  This  seriously  overstrains  his 
heart,  arteries,  kidneys,  nerves  and  digestion." 

The  body  may  well  be  compared  to  a  stove 
with  the  stomach  as  the  firebox.  The  fire  cre- 
ates heat  and  energy,  which  is  exactly  what 
the  digestion  of  food  does  for  your  body. 

But  when  you  stoke  your  stomach  with 
three  or  four  big  meals  each  day  the  same 
thing  happens  that  happens  in  any  stove, — 
the  ashes  and  clinkers  accumulate  in  the  form 
of  various  poisons  and  clog  the  grate. 

The  marvel  of  it  all  is  that  the  human  body 
stands  so  much  neglect  and  abuse.  Your  body 
is  the  most  intricate  and  wonderfully  complex 
machine  in  the  world  and  yet  you  expect  it  to 

run  itself. 

25 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
Horace  Mann  said:  "In  college  I  was  taught 
all  about  the  motions  of  the  planets  as  care- 
fully as  though  they  were  in  danger  of  dying 
off  the  track  if  I  did  not  know  how  to  trace 
their  orbits;  but  nothing  about  the  organiza- 
tion of  my  own  body.  Nothing  could  be  more 
preposterous.  I  should  have  begun  at  home 
and  taken  the  stars  when  it  came  their  turn." 

It  is  remarkable  what  wrong  ideas  people 
have  on  the  subject  of  eating.  For  one  thing, 
few  people  know  that  the  stomach  is  a  flex- 
ible organ,  somewhat  like  a  small  balloon, 
which  can  be  distended  or  contracted  as  you 
choose.  If  you  eat  small  amounts  of  food  it 
becomes  smaller  and  is  satisfied  with  less.  If 
you  eat  large  amounts  of  food  it  distends  until 
only  large  quantities  satisfy  it.  It  is  like  peo- 
ple,— the  more  you  give  it  the  more  it  de- 
mands. 

Here  is  a  strange  and  little  known  fact 
about  your  stomach:  the  feeling  of  satis- 
faction of  having  "had  all  you  want"  comes 
from  the  fact  that  food  is  touching  the  walls 
of  the  stomach.  When  you  have  given  your 
stomach  a  chance  to  become  smaller,  a  smaller 
quantity  of  food  gives  this  satisfied  feeling. 
This  is  also  the  reason  why  you  don't  want  as 

26 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

large  a  meal,  after  decreasing  the  diet  a  few 
days,  as  you  used  to  require. 

Just  as  wrong  eating  is  the  cause  of  most  of 
our  ills,  so  correct  eating  will  create  and  main- 
tain bodily  vigor  and  mental  energy.  By  right 
eating  I  do  not  mean  freak  diets, — I  mean  just 
good,  everyday  foods  properly  combined. 

Poor  food  combinations: 

Milk  and  sugar. 

Fruits  with  coarse  vegetables. 

Acid  fruits  with  starches. 

Too  many  kinds  of  food  at  one  meal. 

Milk  with  acid  fruits. 

Good  food  combinations: 

Fruits  with  cereals  and  nuts. 
Nuts  with  all  foods. 
Vegetables  with  cereals  and  nuts. 
Cereals  with  all  other  foods. 
Milk  with  cereals. 
Eggs  with  all  other  foods. 

The  best  foods  to  select  from: 


Protein 
Peas 
Beans 
Nuts 

Eggs  and  milk 
Cheese 
Gluten  products 


Fats 

Ripe  olives 
Olive  oil 
Cream 
Butter 


27 


Carbohydrates 
Cereals 
Fruits 
Sugar 

Root  vegetables 
Coarse  "fodder" 

vegetables 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

Include  some  from  each  class  in  each  meal. 

In  weight  eat  one-tenth  protein,  one-tenth 
fats  and  eight-tenths  carbohydrates. 

What  you  like  is  not  a  safe  guide.  Do  not, 
for  the  sake  of  tickling  your  palate  for  a  few 
minutes,  load  your  stomach  with  harmful 
foods  that  cost  you  hours  of  inefficiency  and 
suffering. 

Do  not  eat  between  meals.  Your  stomach 
needs  a  rest  the  same  as  all  other  organs. 

Never  eat  when  you  are  not  hungry.  A 
lack  of  hunger  is  your  stomach's  way  of  tell- 
ing you  that  it  is  not  ready  for  more  food. 
Hunger  is  its  signal  that  it  is  ready  to  digest 
food. 

But  it  is  not  a  signal  that  it  is  ready  to 
digest  a  ton  of  junk. 
OVERWEIGHT  AND  UNDERWEIGHT 

The  statistics  of  the  U.  S.  insurance  com- 
panies show  that  for  each  pound  above  normal 
you  increase  your  chances  of  death  one  per 
cent  above  normal  if  disease  strikes  you.  The 
life  insurance  business,  of  stupendous  propor- 
tions financially  and  industrially,  is  based  on 
just  one  thing, — the  law  of  averages  as  applied 
to  the  length  of  your  life. 

To  run  a  winning  instead  of  a  losing  busi- 
ness on  this  guess,  the  insurance  companies 

28 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

had  to  know  what  it  was  that  made  you 
"an  unsafe  risk."  They  have  discovered 
that  fat  is  the  thing  that  does  it.  They 
have  found  in  the  statistics  compiled  upon 
millions  of  Americans,  that  the  fat  man 
dies  younger  than  the  slender  man.  The  man 
whom  you  call  "fat  and  husky"  is  much  more 
likely  to  "drop  off/'  so  say  the  insurance  com- 
panies, than  the  "skinny"  man  you  sympa- 
thize with. 

This  is  true  for  several  reasons,  the 
first  one  being  that  an  excess  of  fat  over- 
taxes the  heart.  Let  me  put  it  this  way  for 
the  sake  of  illustration:  Your  heart  weighs 
less  than  a  pound.  It  is  the  one  organ  that 
never  takes  a  rest.  There  it  is,  that  faithful 
little  engine,  thumping  away  every  instant 
from  the  moment  you  are  born  till  the  mo- 
ment you  are  dead. 

If  you  live  forty  years  that  little  engine  has 
chugged  away  without  an  instant's  cessation 
for  forty  years.  If  you  live  to  be  ninety  it 
has  chugged  away  for  ninety  years.  Every 
other  organ  has  rest  periods,  takes  little  va- 
cations at  night,  in  relaxed  moments,  etc.  But 
not  your  heart. 

Because  it  is  such  a  little  engine  we  will 
compare  it  to  a  Ford  engine.  Now  a  Ford 

29 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

engine  is  large  enough  for  a  Ford  car,  for 
Ford  cars  are  light  weight.  As  long  as  you 
do  not  weigh  too  much  your  engine  will  do 
the  same  for  you.  It  will  take  you  up  the 
hills  and  down  the  dales  of  life  at  a  pretty 
good  gait. 

But  when  you  take  on  fat  you  are  doing  to 
your  heart  just  what  a  Ford  owner  does  to  his 
engine  when  he  loads  the  tonneau  down  with 
bricks. 

A  Ford  engine  will  stand  for  a  good 
many  pounds  of  excess  baggage  just  as  will 
your  heart,  but  if  you  load  in  too  much,  and 
attempt  to  carry  it  all  the  time,  your  car  will 
not  be  in  good  running  order  very  long.  You 
will  not  notice  it  at  first.  Along  the  paved 
streets  of  perfect  health  you  will  travel  with- 
out anything  going  desperately  wrong.  You 
do  your  work,  you  jog  along  fairly  satisfac- 
torily, keeping  up  with  the  procession  without 
apparent  strain,  but  come  to  a  hill  such  as 
Pneumonia  and  Diabetes  and  the  little  engine 
fails  to  make  the  grade. 

Thousands  of  men  and  women  every  year 
literally  "kill  their  engines"  just  that  way 
when  they  might  so  easily  have  had  a  long 
and  happy  life.  Overweight  is  an  infallible 
indication  (except  in  dropsy)  of  overeating. 

30 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

It  is  a  false  idea  that  you  "just  naturally 
fatten  up  after  forty."  You  don't.  Slower 
movements,  less  exercise,  "the  comforts  of 
life," — including  richer  food  and  more  of  it 
— are  what  fatten  the  middle  age  man.  There 
is  no  reason  why  a  man  should  weigh  more  at 
fifty  than  at  thirty. 

Following  is  the  table  of  normal  weights  for 
men  and  women  according  to  the  U.  S.  insur- 
ance statistics  as  compiled  March  1,  1920: 


Height 

Ft.  In.  Pounds 
5  0  126 
128 
130 
133 
136 
140 
144 


5  1 

5  2 

5  3 

5  4 

5  5 

5  6 


AGE  30— MEN 
Height 

Ft.  In.      Pounds 
5      7  148 

152 
156 


5  8 
5  9 
5  10 

5  11 

6  0 


161 
166 
172 


Height 

Ft.  In.       Pounds 

6      1 

6      2 

6     3 

6     4 

6      5 


178 
184 
190 
196 
201 


Height 
Ft.  In.      Pounds 

4   8     112 

4  9 

4  10 

4  11 

5  0 
5   1 


114 
116 
118 
120 
122 


AGE  30— WOMEN 
Height 

Ft.  In.  Pounds 

5      2  124 

5      3  127 

5     4  131 

5     5  134 

5     6  138 

5     7  142 


Height 

Ft.  In.   Pounds 
5   8     146 
150 
154 
157 


5  9 
5  10 

5  11 

6  0 


161 


If  you  are  under  twenty  your  weight  may 
be  over  or  under  without  danger.  If  you  are 
between  twenty  and  thirty  your  weight  may 

31 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
vary  as  much  as  five  pounds  under  or  five 
pounds  over  this  table.     This  table  has  been 
compiled  for  people  of  thirty  years  and  over. 

Fat  is  a  handicap  in  many  ways.  It  de- 
creases not  only  the  quantity  of  life  but  the 
quality. 

The  individual  who  is  much  overweight 
finds  not  only  his  body  less  active  but  his 
mind  also.  He  requires  more  sleep  and  re- 
quires it  oftener  than  the  man  of  normal 
weight.  He  is  not  as  keen,  dynamic  or  alert 
as  he  would  be  were  he  rid  of  his  excess  bag- 
gage. 

Hundreds  of  my  students  have  told  me 
how  much  more  alive  were  their  minds,  how 
much  more  happy  and  optimistic  their  mental 
condition,  after  reducing.  Those  who  are 
overweight  should  first  cut  down  the  quantity 
of  food. 

No  matter  how  little  you  are  eating  if  you 
are  overweight  you  are  overeating.  When  a 
fat  man  declares  to  me  that  he  eats  but  one 
head  of  lettuce  a  day,  I  say  "cut  the  head  in 
two." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  fat  man  or  woman 
usually  overeats.  The  very  presence  of  fat 
indicates  the  same  thing  that  water  does  when 

32 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

BILIOUSNESS 

Biliousness  is  largely  the  result  of  constipa- 
tion or  of  a  lazy  liver.  The  liver  is  the  body's 
poison  destroyer, — the  "garbage  crematory" 
of  the  system, — and  when  it  fails  to  do  its 
work  the  blood  is  flooded  with  poisons.  This 
in  turn  causes  brain  fag  as  well  as  body  fag. 
A  torpid  liver  always  makes  a  torpid  mind. 

To  overcome  a  tendency  to  biliousness 
avoid  sweets  and  starches  and  eat  raw  fruits. 

HEADACHES 

Most  headaches  come  from  constipation. 
The  millions  of  microbes  which  inhabit  the 
large  intestine  are  often  responsible  for  mental 
sluggishness  and  the  "blues."  When  these 
poisons  are  too  long  retained  in  the  bowel  and 
especially  when  they  are  greatly  increased  by 
overeating  or  too  much  meat  in  the  diet,  the 
increased  production  and  absorption  of  poi- 
sons will  cause  headaches. 

Headache  remedies  never  cure  your  head- 
ache. They  merely  drug  you  into  not  feeling 
it.  Instead  of  taking  drugs  clean  out  the  in- 
testines and  colon. 

Your  mind  never  works  effectively  when 
your  body  is  working  defectively.  Many  a 
giant  intellect  has  been  starved  and  eventually 

35 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

killed  by  the  poisons  absorbed  as  the  result  of 
chronic  constipation. 

RHEUMATISM 

Today  it  is  known  that  rheumatism  comes 
from  infection  somewhere  in  the  system.  In- 
fection manufactures  pus.  When  this  pus  has 
no  outlet  it  is  absorbed  by  the  body.  Rheu- 
matism is  the  howl  set  up  by  your  body  when 
it  has  swallowed  more  of  this  poison  than  it 
can  stand. 

The  source  of  the  trouble  may  be  anywhere 
in  the  body,  but  it  has  been  found  that  the 
teeth  and  the  tonsils  are  the  favorite  breeding 
grounds. 

If  you  feel  the  warning  twinges  don't  stop 
at  the  elimination  of  "red  meats"  or  the  in- 
dulgence in  "frequent  baths."  Both  measures 
are  helpful,  whether  you  are  sick  or  well. 

Have  your  teeth  and  tonsils  "X-Rayed." 
The  picture  will  probably  reveal  the  tell-tale 
"black  spots" — tiny  abscesses  that  have  been 
sending  out  their  poisons,  sometimes  for 
years. 

Dentistry  is  the  infant  among  the  sciences 
and  has  not  yet  devised  methods  for  per- 
manently crowning  your  decayed  teeth  suc- 
cessfully. There  is  always  danger  that  the 
pretty  exterior  "covers  a  multitude  of  sins." 

36 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

SLEEPING 

Your  nerves  resemble  electrical  batteries. 
Nerve  energy  is  your  electricity  and  the  cur- 
rent is  on  during  every  waking  moment. 
Sleep  is  necessary  for  the  recharging  of  these 
batteries. 

You  may  feel  good  for  a  long  time  on 
little  sleep,  but  that  is  only  because  your 
nerves  are  "extending  you  credit."  You  can't 
borrow  on  the  future  indefinitely.  The  time 
is  sure  to  come  when  they  will  foreclose. 

Grief,  joy,  excitement,  fear,  anxiety, — in 
fact,  all  emotional  mental  states — increase  the 
voltage  and  run  down  your  batteries.  If  you 
want  health  don't  waste  your  electricity. 

From  six  to  eight  hours  of  sleep  are  essen- 
tial to  the  health  of  the  average  man  and  wo- 
man. Some  require  as  much  as  nine  while 
others  keep  well  on  an  average  of  five  hours 
of  sleep. 

No  iron-clad  rule  can  be  laid  down  for  all. 
Much  depends  upon  the  temperament  of  the 
individual.  The  only  safe  rule  is  this:  Do 
not  make  a  practice  of  sleeping  less  than  five 
hours  nor  more  than  nine  out  of  twenty-four. 

Do  not  spend  any  more  of  your  lifetime 
asleep  than  is  necessary  to  good  health  but 
be  sure  to  get  all  you  need.  This  can  be 

37 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
determined  by  noting  carefully  how  you  feel 
on  the  days  after  you  have  had  the  minimum 
of  sleep. 

In  deciding  whether  lack  of  sleep  is  harm- 
ful  to   you   physical   evidence    alone   is    not 
sufficient.     Watch  your  memory  on  the  days 
following  the  minimum  of  sleep.     This  is  the 
best  test,  for  memory  is  the  weakest  link  in 
your  mental  chain.     You  can  safely  estimate 
J     your  "sleep  capacity"  in  this  manner. 
INSOMNIA 

Insomnia  is  not  a  disease  but  a  symptom, — 
an  indication  that  something  is  wrong  with 
you  mentally  or  physically.  Either  your  body 
is  sick  over  something  or  your  mind  is  worried 
over  something. 

Many  people  think  they  have  not  slept 
when  they  really  have.  We  are  not  conscious 
of  sleep.  We  are  only  conscious  of  the  inter- 
vals when  we  are  awake. 

Unless  you  have  a  watch  beside  your  bed 
and  time  yourself  you  can  never  know  how 
long  you  stayed  awake  in  the  night.  The 
desire  for  sleep  and  the  monotony  always 
make  your  mind  exaggerate  the  period  of 
wakefulness. 

It  has  been  found  in  hospitals  and  sanitaria 
where  a  nurse  times  the  patient,  that  he  sleeps 

38 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

more  than  he  thinks  he  has,  and  the  time 
that  seems  "hours"  to  him  was  only  minutes 
according  to  the  clock. 

This  is  the  first  step  toward  recovery, — to 
realize  that  you  are  nine  times  out  of  ten  get- 
ting more  sleep  than  you  imagine.  The  sec- 
ond is  this  rather  startling  fact, — which  has 
been  proven  by  scientists:  It  isn't  the  loss  of 
sleep  that  harms  you  so  much  as  the  worry 
over  its  loss. 

A  man  lies  awake  a  couple  of  hours  in  the 
night.  He  frets  over  it.  He  tells  himself 
how  badly  he  needs  his  rest  and  how  mis- 
erable he  is  going  to  feel  the  next  day.  He 
gets  all  ready  for  a  headache  and  when  he 
awakens  in  the  morning  without  one  he  says 
it  will  appear  pretty  soon.  He  looks  for  it, 
expects  it,  mentally  invites  it,  gets  all  ready 
for  it,  concentrates  on  it  until  he  actually 
feels  a  headache  coming  on.  But  he  and 
not  the  sleeplessness  brought  it. 

Experiments  have  shown  that  one  can 
lose  a  great  deal  of  sleep  without  impairing 
the  health,  because  when  we  do  sleep  we 
make  up  for  the  sleep  lost  by  sleeping  three 
or  four  times  as  soundly.  * 

*  See  the  experiments  of  Prof.  Patrick  of  the  University 
of  Iowa. 

39 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
But  worry  is  another  matter.  Worry  at 
any  time  is  dangerous  to  health.  Therefore, 
when  you  find  yourself  wakeful  remember  the 
wakefulness  won't  harm  you  much  but  worry 
will.  Tell  yourself  that  you  are  resting  your 
body  for  the  next  day's  demands.  Relax  every 
muscle.  Relax  your  mind.  Don't  try  to 
think  or  allow  yourself  to  think  intensely 
about  anything.  Let  your  mind  drift  as  if 
on  a  slow,  smooth-flowing  river.  When  it 
fastens  itself  on  those  worries  or  any  other 
one  subject  detach  it  and  set  it  to  floating 
again.  Sleep  will  usually  come  soon  but  if 
it  doesn't,  don't  be  discouraged.  Take  ad- 
vantage of  the  opportunity  to  master  your- 
self, and  in  a  few  nights  you  will  be  able 
to  put  yourself  to  sleep  in  this  manner. 
Most  insomnia  comes  from  letting  your 
nerves  and  mind  run  wild.  This  method  for 
curing  sleeplessness  also  cures  you  of  the 
source  of  your  trouble  by  giving  mental  dis- 
cipline. 

But  remember,  in  this  as  in  all  things,  your 
body  and  mind  are  interdependent.  Aid  your 
mind  in  following  the  above  rules  by  avoiding 
all  stimulants.  You  cannot  key  up  your  brain 
during  the  day  by  tea  and  coffee  and  expect  it 
to  subside  at  night. 

40 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

You  say  you  have  to  drink  coffee  to  "brace 
you  up."  When  you  don't  sleep  you  are 
merely  braced  up. 

Go  to  bed  before  midnight.  If  you  are 
troubled  by  chronic  insomnia,  be  in  bed  by 
ten  o'clock.  It  has  been  proved  by  scientific 
experiments  that  the  period  of  greatest  mental 
activity  is  between  one  and  four  in  the  morn- 
ing. Many  of  the  famous  writers,  including 
Herbert  Spencer,  reserved  these  hours  for 
writing,  declaring  their  clearest  thinking  and 
most  brilliant  thoughts  came  at  that  time. 

Be  sure  to  retire  before  this  "wide-awake" 
period  comes  to  you.  The  time  varies  some- 
what with  the  individual.  Watch  yourself. 
Note  the  time  when  your  natural  "sleepy 
feeling"  wears  off  and  make  a  practice  of 
retiring  prior  to  it.  This  wave  of  sleepiness 
will  carry  you  safely  into  unconsciousness. 
Then  if  you  are  careful  to  sleep  in  a  quiet, 
well  ventilated  room  your  chances  for  re- 
maining asleep  all  night  are  good. 

Avoid  rich  or  spicy  foods  just  before  retir- 
ing. 

A  glass  of  warm  water,  warm  milk  or 
broth  will  tend  to  draw  the  blood  away  from 
your  head  and  induce  sleep. 

41 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

A  tepid  bath  in  which  you  lie  completely 
relaxed  for  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes  just 
before  going  to  bed  is  also  excellent.  Never 
take  a  hot  or  cold  bath  just  before  retiring, 
as  both  tend  to  stimulate  heart  action. 

Never,  except  under  a  physician's  orders,  re- 
sort to  sleep-producing  drugs.     They  do  not 
bring  sleep  but  only   distorted  unconscious- 
ness.    Each  dose  decreases  your  tendency  to 
natural  sleep  while  increasing  the  necessity 
for  a  larger  dose  until,  after  using  drugs,  you 
find  it  impossible  to  fall  asleep  naturally.     In 
addition  to  these  harmful  results  every  drug  of 
this  kind  is  poisonous  in  itself.    The  poisoning 
of  the  system  in  this  way  adds  to  your  wake- 
ful tendencies  and  thus  you  go  around  in  a 
vicious  circle.      Better  remain   awake   whole 
nights  than  contract  the  "sleeping-drug"  habit. 
The  last  warning  for  wakeful  ones  is  this: 
Don't  take  your  troubles  to  bed.     They  can- 
not be  settled  there.     They  only  unsettle  you. 
A  well  known  scientist  has  said:    "Don't  just- 
ify yourself  by  saying  you  only  think  things 
over.     Most  thinking  in  bed  is  worry." 

RELAXATION 

Man  spends  at  least  one-fourth  of  his  life- 
time asleep.     Thus  the  one  who  lives  to  60 

42 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

years  has  slept  15  years  and  the  80-year-old  20 
years.  If  you  want  to  cut  down  these  sleeping 
years  remember  this:  When  you  are  not  do- 
ing anything  else,  relax.  Let  your  muscles 
relax.  Let  your  mind  relax.  Most  people 
keep  themselves  tense  and  taut  as  a  violin 
string  from  morning  till  night.  Those  who 
have  insomnia  get  it  by  keeping  themselves 
that  way  after  they  are  in  bed.  This  keeps  the 
entire  system  so  keyed  up  that  you  are  tired 
continually. 

It  isn't  your  office  work  or  housework  that 
tires  you  so  much  as  the  hard  work  you  make 
your  muscles  do  between  times.  You  don't 
let  go.  You  are  geared  "in  high"  as  the  auto- 
ists  say.  Your  muscles  are  like  so  many  sol- 
diers. They  are  standing  stiff  and  straight  at 
"attention,"  ready  for  instant  action. 

This  is  a  part  of  the  body's  general  plan 
of  "preparedness"  and  is  maintained  by  a 
rapid  succession  of  impulses  raining  down 
over  every  muscle  of  your  body  at  the  rate  of 
about  ten  reflexes  per  second.  The  contrac- 
tion is  so  rapid  that  it  produces  a  sound  some- 
what like  the  vibration  of  a  guitar  string. 

If  you  will  put  the  tips  of  your  fingers  in 
your  ears  and  then  stiffen  every  muscle  and 

43 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

A  tepid  bath  in  Which  you  lie  completely 
relaxed  for  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes  just 
before  going  to  bed  is  also  excellent.  Never 
take  a  hot  or  cold  bath  just  before  retiring, 
as  both  tend  to  stimulate  heart  action. 

Never,  except  under  a  physician's  orders,  re- 
sort to  sleep-producing  drugs.  They  do  not 
bring  sleep  but  only  distorted  unconscious- 
ness. Each  dose  decreases  your  tendency  to 
natural  sleep  while  increasing  the  necessity 
for  a  larger  dose  until,  after  using  drugs,  you 
find  it  impossible  to  fall  asleep  naturally.  In 
addition  to  these  harmful  results  every  drug  of 
this  kind  is  poisonous  in  itself.  The  poisoning 
of  the  system  in  this  way  adds  to  your  wake- 
ful tendencies  and  thus  you  go  around  in  a 
vicious  circle.  Better  remain  awake  whole 
nights  than  contract  the  "sleeping-drug"  habit. 

The  last  warning  for  wakeful  ones  is  this: 
Don't  take  your  troubles  to  bed.  They  can- 
not be  settled  there.  They  only  unsettle  you. 
A  well  known  scientist  has  said:  "Don't  just- 
ify yourself  by  saying  you  only  think  things 
over.  Most  thinking  in  bed  is  worry." 

RELAXATION 

Man  spends  at  least  one-fourth  of  his  life- 
time asleep.  Thus  the  one  who  lives  to  60 

42 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

years  has  slept  15  years  and  the  80-year-old  20 
years.  If  you  want  to  cut  down  these  sleeping 
years  remember  this:  When  you  are  not  do- 
ing anything  else,  relax.  Let  your  muscles 
relax.  Let  your  mind  relax.  Most  people 
keep  themselves  tense  and  taut  as  a  violin 
string  from  morning  till  night.  Those  who 
have  insomnia  get  it  by  keeping  themselves 
that  way  after  they  are  in  bed.  This  keeps  the 
entire  system  so  keyed  up  that  you  are  tired 
continually. 

It  isn't  your  office  work  or  housework  that 
tires  you  so  much  as  the  hard  work  you  make 
your  muscles  do  between  times.  You  don't 
let  go.  You  are  geared  "in  high"  as  the  auto- 
ists  say.  Your  muscles  are  like  so  many  sol- 
diers. They  are  standing  stiff  and  straight  at 
"attention,"  ready  for  instant  action. 

This  is  a  part  of  the  body's  general  plan 
of  "preparedness"  and  is  maintained  by  a 
rapid  succession  of  impulses  raining  down 
over  every  muscle  of  your  body  at  the  rate  of 
about  ten  reflexes  per  second.  The  contrac- 
tion is  so  rapid  that  it  produces  a  sound  some- 
what like  the  vibration  of  a  guitar  string. 

If  you  will  put  the  tips  of  your  fingers  in 
your  ears  and  then  stiffen  every  muscle  and 

43 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

hold  it  tense  you  can  distinctly  hear  it.  It  is 
estimated  that  at  least  40  per  cent  of  the 
energy  expended  daily  by  us  is  expended  in 
this  way  and  is  equal  to  walking  20  miles  or 
lifting  a  5-pound  weight  500  times.  This 
explains  why  worry  and  nervousness  use  up 
energy  so  rapidly. 

When  you  are  in  a  state  of  high  nervous 
tension  you  are  burning  up  your  strength 
at  a  rapid  rate.  Avoid  this  destruction  of 
your  strength  by  relaxing  as  completely  as 
possible  whenever  a  moment's  opportunity 
presents  itself.  Let  yourself  down  whenever 
there  is  no  necessity  for  strain.  By  doing 
this  you  will  be  ready  with  reserve  strength 
when  the  emergencies  arrive. 

Whenever  you  are  waiting  for  a  car,  an  ele- 
vator, a  clerk,  waiter  or  any  kind  of  service, 
remember  they  are  doing  it,  not  you,  and  take 
it  as  an  opportunity  to  rest  every  fibre  of  your 
body.  After  the  street  car  or  elevator  comes 
and  you  are  started  relax  again  till  your  desti- 
nation is  reached,  and  give  those  tight  muscles 
a  little  vacation.  Do  this  for  one  day  and  see 
what  it  will  do  for  you. 

If  you  are  in  work  where  you  can  com- 
pletely relax  for  five  minutes  each  hour  you 

44 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

will  require  25  per  cent  less  sleep  and  come 
to  the  end  of  each  day  much  less  weary.    The 
efficiency  of  the  nation's  biggest  men  is  main- 
tained largely  by  this  secret.     Only  the  one-  \ 
cylinder  individual  keeps  chugging  every  in-  \ 
stant.    Relax ! 

EXERCISE 

Motion  is  essential  to  the  healthful  condi- 
tion of  all  animate  things.  Man's  health  de- 
pends more  than  we  think  on  his  muscular 
activity.  But  this  does  not  necessarily  mean 
strenuous  exercise. 

Whether  or  not  intense  physical  activity 
is  essential  to  health  depends  entirely  upon 
the  type  of  the  individual.  A  muscular  man 
or  woman, — that  is,  the  type  whose  muscles 
are  highly  developed, — requires  strenuous 
muscular  activity  in  order  to  stay  well.  He 
should  take  this  kind  of  exercise.  If  his  work 
does  not  provide  it  he  should  get  it  outside 
his  work.  On  the  other  hand,  the  very  men- 
tal person  whose  chief  ambition  is  to  read  a 
book,  has  less  muscular  development  and  re- 
quires less  muscular  activity. 

The  safest  law  as  to  exercise  is  this:  Three 
miles  of  walking  in  the  open  air  every  day  for 

45 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
all  types,  with  the  following  simple  exercises 
the  first  thing  in  the  morning  and  the  last 
thing  at  night.     They  "tone  up"  the  system, 
aid  digestion  and  ward  off  constipation: 

1.  Stand  erect,  with  arms  hanging  at  sides. 
Bend  your  body  at  the  waist  to  the  right, 
reaching  down  toward  the  floor  as  far  as 
possible.    Then  bend  your  body  to  the  left, 
trying  to  reach  the  floor  with  your  left 
hand.     Do  this  10  times  at  first,  gradually 
increasing  to  40  times. 

2.  Stand  erect.     Place  hands  on  hips.     Twist 
your  body  to  the  right  as  far  as  possible 
without  moving  your  feet,  then  twist  your 
body  as  far  to  the  left  as  possible.    This  is 
one  of  the  best  liver  exercises.     Do   10 
times  at  first,  increasing  to  50. 

3.  Lie  flat  on  your  back.     Fold  your  arms. 
Raise  both  legs  together  to  a  perpendicu- 
lar position.     Then  lower  them  together 
slowly.      Begin   with   5   and   increase   to 
20  times.     This  is  the  best  stomach  exer- 
cise. 

4.  Lie  flat  on  your  back.     Fold  your  arms. 
Slowly  raise  yourself  to  a  sitting  position, 
then  slowly  lower  yourself  again  to  a  re- 

46 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

clining  position.     Begin  with  5  times  and 
increase  to  20. 

5.  If  you  have  but  little  opportunity  for  walk- 
ing you  can  exercise  your  feet  and  ankles 
by  this  exercise:    Stand  erect  with  feet  al- 
most touching.     Slowly  raise  yourself  up 
and  down  on  your  toes.     Stand  firmly. 
Start  with  10  times  and  increase  to  25. 

6.  If  you  spend  much  time  indoors  give  your- 
self  the   following   lung   exercises   at   an 
open  window  several  times  a  day:     Lift 
your  chest,  draw  in  deep  breaths,  filling 
the  lungs  to  full  capacity.     Then  slowly 
expel  the  air.     Force  the  air  deep  down 
into  the  very  lowest  portion  of  your  lungs, 
and  expel  all  of  it  before  taking  the  next 
breath. 

DUMB  BELL  EXERCISES 
(Women  should  use  bells  weighing  from 
2  to  4  pounds  each  and  men  from  4  to  6 
pounds.) 

1.  Stand  erect.     Raise  arms  straight  up,  then 
lower  straight  in  front  of  you  until  they 
are  at  right  angles  with  the  body.     Raise 
and  lower  5  times,  increasing  to  10. 

2.  Raise  arms  straight  up.     Lower  the  right 
arm  down  the  right  side  and  the  left  arm 

47 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
down  the  left  side  until  they  are  at  right 
angles  with  the  body.     Raise  and  lower 
from  5  to  10  times. 

3.  Stretch  both  arms  straight  out  in  front  of 
you.    Then  swing  back  and  forth  horizon- 
tally.    Start  with  10  and  increase  to  20 
times.    This  is  the  best  exercise  for  taking 
fat  off  the  shoulder  blades  and  for  putting 
muscle  on  them. 

4.  Hold  right  arm  straight  out  at  right  side. 
Then  swing  it  from  back  to  front  in  a  circle 
as  wide  as  possible.    Do  the  same  with  the 
left  arm.     This  strengthens  the  shoulders 
and  removes  surplus  flesh.     Start  with  10 
and  increase  to  20  times  for  each. 

5.  Hold  arms  straight  out  in  front  of  you. 
Then  swing  them  as  high  as  possible  and 
as  low  as  possible  in  a  semi-circle.     Start 
with  10  times  and  increase  to  20. 

Outdoor  exercises  may  be  according  to  the 
preferences  of  the  individual.  Nature  is  wiser 
than  we.  If  outdoor  exercise  is  necessary  to 
the  upkeep  of  your  particular  system  you  will 
know  about  it  through  her  wireless — your  nat- 
ural inclinations.  Roughly  speaking,  however, 
the  following  rules  apply: 

To  reduce,  fat  people  need  not  resort  to  the 

48 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

violent  exercises  sometimes  recommended,  but 
should  do  so  by  reversing  the  condition  which 
caused  overweight,  i.  e.,  by  decreasing  the 
quantity  of  food.  They  may  participate  in 
whatever  outdoor  recreations  are  preferred. 

It  is  impossible  to  separate  mental  and  phy- 
sical reactions.  When  the  mind  does  not  like 
what  the  body  is  doing  the  maximum  of  phy- 
sical benefit  is  not  possible. 

Florid  people  should  take  part  in  exercises 
and  sports  requiring  short  spurts  of  energy, 
preferably  baseball,  tennis  and  other  diver- 
sions sufficiently  keen  to  meet  the  require- 
ments of  their  enthusiastic  nature. 

Those  of  extreme  muscular  development 
enjoy  and  thrive  upon  the  most  strenuous 
physical  activities,  such  as  racing,  running, 
football,  etc. 

Those  men  and  women  who  are  tall,  angu- 
lar, "raw-boned", — who  have  a  larger  propor- 
tion of  bone  in  the  body  structure  than  the 
average, — usually  care  only  for  such  recrea- 
tions as  hiking,  golf  and  exercises  calling  for 
slow  movements  over  long  distances. 

The  undersized,  dreaming,  reading  individ- 
ual, who  dislikes  all  forms  of  physical  ex- 
ertion, can  remain  surprisingly  well  without 

49 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

exercise  but  even  he  should  walk  his  three 
miles  a  day. 

The  brain  never  works  so  well  as  when  one 
is  walking  in  the  open  air.  Walking  is  a 
brain  stimulant.  The  reason  for  this  is  that 
clear  thinking  is  only  accomplished  when  the 
blood  is  circulating  fairly  rapidly  through  the 
brain.  Walking  speeds  up  heart  action.  In 
other  words,  it  does  for  you  just  what  that 
cup  of  black  coffee  does,  but  without  its  pen- 
alties. 

Keeping  in  health  is  largely  a  matter  of 
ripening  the  new  cells  and  expelling  the  old 
ones.  The  body  is  composed  of  billions  of 
cells  and  these  cells  are  of  three  kinds  or 
stages,  —  those  just  ripening,  those  in  their 
prime  and  those  that  are  dying. 

Keeping  well  is  largely  a  matter  of  keeping 
this  evolutionary  process  speeded  up  to  the 
point  where  new  cells  are  not  retarded  in  their 
growth  and  dead  ones  not  retained. 

Walking  and  other  forms  of  exercise  are 
valuable  as  a  preventative  of  the  clogging-up. 
Disease  is  nothing  but  this  clogging  up  car- 
ried to  the  danger  point. 

No  lesson  on  health  in  these  enlightened 
days  can  be  completed  without  this  warning: 
Your  thinking  vitally  affects  your  health. 

50 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

Worry,  fear,  anxiety, — all  negative  moods, — 
tear  down  millions  of  cells  each  instant  and  at 
the  same  time  tend  to  so  obstruct  the  normal 
functioning  of  the  body  that  these  cells,  which 
have  been  turned  into  debris,  are  not  carried 
away. 

No  man  of  unhealthy  thoughts  can  have 
a  healthy  body.  If  you  would  be  sure  of 
a  strong  body  keep  a  sharp  eye  on  the 
thoughts  that  you  permit  to  take  possession  of 
your  brain. 

For  centuries  it  has  been  acknowledged  that 
the  mind  influences  the  body.  We  know  that 
mental  disorders  sometimes  produce  physical 
diseases. 

We  know  that  any  kind  of  mental  distur- 
bance decreases  physical  vitality.  An  un- 
pleasant story  can  cause  nausea.  The  keen- 
est hunger  disappears  when  you  receive  a  tele- 
gram bearing  sad  news. 

On  the  other  hand  the  body  also  influences 
the  mind.  Lesions  in  the  brain  cause  insanity 
and  other  mental  disorders. 

Another  evidence  of  the  body's  influence 
on  the  mind  is  seen  in  the  following:  When- 
ever you  are  physically  tired  your  memory  is 
not  up  to  par.  A  cup  of  black  coffee  put  into 
your  stomach  speeds  up  your  mental  activities. 

51 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
As  a  matter  of  fact  your  body  and  your 
brain  are  married  and  they  will  never  be  di- 
vorced. What  affects  one  affects  the  other. 
Man  is  a  unit;  he  is  a  marvelously  organized 
community  of  some  twenty-six  trillions  of 
cells.  Each  little  individual  cell  is  a  distinct 
and  separate  being  with  a  work  and  a  life  of 
its  own.  The  health  and  happiness  of  each 
cell  or  group  of  cells  affects  all  other  cells  com- 
posing the  commonwealth  of  the  body.  The 
feelings  of  each  group  of  cells, — those  of  the 
liver,  lungs,  brain  and  other  organs,  —  in- 
stantly affect  the  feelings  of  all  other  groups. 
This  is  done  by  means  of  your  circulatory 
system  (the  blood  vessels)  and  your  nervous 
system  (your  nerves).  Your  circulatory  sys- 
tem— from  the  big  trunk  lines  of  the  arteries 
down  to  the  tiniest  blood  vessels — carries  the 
different  chemicals  necessary  for  the  upkeep 
of  the  body,  just  as  a  freight  train  carries 
many  kinds  of  commodities  to  many  stations. 
Your  nervous  system  is  the  most  perfect 
telegraph  system  in  the  world.  Over  its  wires 
is  flashed  the  news  of  every  thought,  sound, 
taste,  touch,  odor  and  sight  that  come  within 
the  range  of  your  senses. 

'  When  any  of  these  senses  encounters  an 
unpleasant  or  destructive  experience  the  mes- 

52 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

sage  of  it  is  instantly  sent  out  to  your  cir- 
culatory system  and  injects  into  the  blood 
the  harmful  chemicals  known  as  toxins. 

When  something  pleasant,  beautiful  or  joy- 
ous happens  to  these  senses  the  news  flashed 
over  the  wires  creates  life-giving  chemicals 
in  the  blood  stream. 

Any  part  of  the  body  thus  instantaneously 
influences  every  other  part  for  good  or  ill 
through  the  medium  of  these  intricately  inter- 
woven systems. 

Every  cell  is  equipped  with  a  tiny  nerve 
of  its  own  and  keeps  in  constant  touch  with 
everything  that  is  going  on  in  the  rest  of  the 
body. 

When  a  single  group  of  cells  can  thus  in- 
fluence all  other  groups  think  how  much  more 
powerful  is  the  influence  of  the  whole  mind. 
The  mind  presides  over  the  very  citadel  of  the 
nervous  system.  It  handles  all  mental  mes- 
sages sent  out  by  the  nervous  system  and 
modifies  the  chemical  freight  carried  by  the 
circulatory  system. 

The  potent  factor  in  all  mental  healing  is 
the  removal  of  fear  from  the  mind.  It  does 
not  so  much  matter  how  this  is  accomplished, 
— whether  by  faith,  hope,  argument,  reason  or 
even  superstition.  The  primitive  Hawaiian,  in 

53 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
the  famous  play,  "The  Bird  of  Paradise,"  dies 
because  she  believes  the  priest  is  praying  her 
to    death.     The    same    superstition    reversed 
would  work  the  opposite  result. 

The  different  types  of  people  in  our  own 
country  respond  to  different  types  of  belief 
concerning  the  question  of  mind  control.  The 
religious-minded  is  impressed  when  it  comes 
to  him  in  the  form  of  a  religion;  the  scientific- 
minded  is  convinced  by  the  respective  effects 
of  fear  and  faith  on  the  human  body;  the 
everyday  practical  man  and  woman  accepts 
it  when  he  sees  the  different  physical  condi- 
tions caused  in  him  by  joy  and  by  sorrow. 

Fear  poisons  the  body.  When  this  pall  of 
fear  is  lifted  a  big  step  has  been  taken  toward 
the  cure. 

Faith  may  not  cure  the  body  but  it  does 
stop  the  secretion  of  the  fear  poisons.  This 
gives  nature  a  chance  to  go  on  with  her  mar- 
velous healing  processes.  When  she  stands 
ready  to  do  these  wonders  for  you  don't  you 
think  the  least  you  can  do  is  to  give  her  a 
chance?  Stop  shackling  her  with  your  fear 
thoughts.  Give  her  a  free  rein. 

If  you  cannot  at  first  believe  in  the  healing 
power  of  faith  at  least  keep  a  serene  neutral- 
ity. Pretty  soon,  when  you  see  the  wonders 

54 


HOW  TO  BE  WELL 

Nature  performs  in  clearing  up  your  troubles, 
you  will  realize  that  faith  in  her  is  justified. 

Maybe  you  do  not  believe  in  "miracles." 
But  you  witness  one  every  time  a  cut  on 
your  finger  heals  up.  You  can't  explain  how 
it  is  done.  It  is  something  man  cannot  do 
for  himself.  But  Nature  does  it.  Her  one 
idea  is  to  keep  you  well.  She  never  for  a 
moment  relaxes  her  vigil  over  you. 

No  matter  how  material-minded  you  are 
you  can't  get  around  the  fact  that  any  force 
which  turns  your  sickness  into  health  deserves 
your  co-operation  at  least. 

The  body  and  mind  are  mutually  interde- 
pendent. But  they  are  not  identical.  Health 
lies  in  the  proper  functioning  of  both  mind 
and  body.  Your  body  is  a  part  of  the  world 
of  matter  and  is  dependent  for  its  life  upon 
the  material  constituents  supplied  to  it.  Its 
happiness  and  healthfulness  depend  largely 
upon  the  thoughts  supplied  to  it  by  your  mind. 

The  first  step  is  to  supply  the  material  ne- 
cessities of  life, — right  breathing,  right  eating, 
right  exercising,  right  drinking,  right  sleeping. 
The  second  is  to  supply  the  right  thoughts, — 
stimulating,  optimistic,  courageous  thoughts, 
for  thoughts  vitally  affect  your  physical  condi- 
tion and  the  length  of  your  life. 

55 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
Since  your  mental  attitude  affects  your 
physical  condition  avoid  the  subject  of  disease. 
Avoid  talking,  reading  or  thinking  about  ab- 
normal conditions  of  the  human  body.  Above 
all,  do  not  look  for  symptoms  within  yourself 
of  any  disease. 

My  parting  word  to  you  is:  Stop  worrying. 
Keep  your  mind  full  of  uplifting,  vitalizing 
thoughts.  In  the  next  lesson  I  am  going  to 
tell  you  how  to  do  this. 


56 


CHAPTER  II 
HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 

"Worry  is  the  cause  of  more  inefficiency, 
unhappiness  and  illness  than  almost  any  other 
affliction  which  modern  humanity  has  to  com- 
bat. It  may  well  be  called  'the  disease  of  the 
age.'  "— SALEEBY. 

HE  rules  set  forth  in  this  lesson,  if 
faithfully  followed,  will  free  you  of 
the  shackles  of  despondency,  fear, 
doubt  and  worry.  They  will  free 
you  from  the  bondage  of  failure  and  despair. 
If  any  of  these  rules  seem  too  easy  or  too 
simple  to  be  adequate,  remind  yourself  that 
they  are  scientifically  sound.  The  psychologi- 
cal processes  behind  these  rules  are  not  simple. 
They  are  intricate  and  complex,  just  as  the 
scientific  processes  behind  your  electric  lights 
are  intricate  and  complex.  But  it  is  not  neces- 
sary for  you  to  be  conversant  with  the  ramifi- 
cations of  electricity  in  order  to  light  your 
home.  You  press  a  button. 

In   this   lesson   I   am   going   to   show   you 
all  you  need  to  know  to  be  free  of  worry. 

57 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

I  shall  show  you  how  to  press  the  buttons 
that  shall  flood  your  life  with  brightness.  All 
that  is  necessary  to  convince  yourself  is  to  try 
them.  Press  the  buttons  I  shall  point  out  to 
you  and  see  for  yourself.  The  results  will 
amaze  you. 

You  and  I  are  going  to  make  a  compact  I 
will  keep  my  promise  and  you  are  going  to 
keep  yours. 

My  promise  is  this:  In  this  lesson  I  am 
going  to  tell  you  exactly  what  worry  is,  what 
it  comes  from  and  how  to  stop  it. 

Your  promise  to  me  is  this:  That  for  the 
few  moments  on  this  lesson  you  are  going  to 
relax,  make  yourself  comfortable  in  mind  and 
body,  listen  carefully  to  what  I  say  and  forget 
for  these  few  moments  every  problem  that 
troubles  you.  You  can  do  nothing  about 
them  for  these  few  moments  anyhow.  You 
cannot  give  your  attention  to  two  subjects 
simultaneously,  and  for  these  few  moments 
you  are  going  to  give  your  attention  to  me. 
After  that  you  may  pick  them  up  again  and 
do  what  you  like  with  them,  but  for  just  now 
you  are  going  to  listen  to  me  and  let  your 
troubles  wait  until  our  little  visit  is  over. 

I  promise  that  if  you  will  do  this  with  your 
whole  heart,  giving  me  your  complete  co- 

58 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 
operation,    relaxing    completely    and    bidding 
your  troubles  wait  outside  the  door,  you  will 
be   able   to   meet   and   defeat   these   troubles 
and  all  your  future  ones. 

Are  you  a  worrier?  If  you  don't  know,  try 
this  test  on  yourself?  Are  you  in  the  habit 
of  going  over  and  over  and  over  in  your  mind 
the  same  problem  day  after  day  without  reach- 
ing a  conclusion?  Do  you  take  up  a  fear  of 
misfortune,  tragedy,  sorrow,  hardship  or  pov- 
erty and  think  about  it  most  of  the  day  with- 
out deciding  what  to  do,  and  start  in  next 
morning  all  over  again?  If  you  do  these 
things  you  are  a  worrier. 

Worry  is  different  from  other  forms  of  men- 
tal disturbance.  When  you  are  merely  anx- 
ious or  troubled  over  a  problem  you  think 
about  it,  look  on  all  sides  of  it,  reach  a  de- 
cision and  then  do  something  about  it  in  ac- 
cordance with  that  decision. 

These  crucial  situations  come  into  the  lives 
of  all  of  us  and  must  be  met.  All  of  us  lose 
our  loved  ones  by  death.  All  of  us  have  prob- 
lems. 

In  this  lesson  I  do  not  have  reference  to 
these  inevitable  and  temporary  crises.  They 
are  mental  stress  in  an  acute  form  and  must 
be  dealt  with  as  the  problem  arises,  according 

59 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
to  the  facts  of  that  particular  problem.     This 
lesson  has  reference  to  a  chronic  mental  at- 
titude. 

The  worrier  seldom  realizes  that  his  atti- 
tude has  become  chronic;  he  imagines  each 
day's  worry  business  a  separate  day's  busi- 
ness, not  realizing  that  it  is  merely  a  repetition 
of  yesterday's  worries  and  that  yesterday's 
worries  were  a  repetition  of  the  worries  of 
last  week. 

No  one  likes  to  admit  he  is  a  worrier.  We 
are  all  convinced  that  worrying  is  weakness, 
but  the  first  step  toward  curing  anything  is  to 
confess  the  fact. 

Maybe  you  have  been  justifying  yourself 
by  saying  the  anxiety  you  have  been  feeling 
was  not  worry  but  an  attitude  necessary  to  a 
solution  of  the  problem.  But  if  the  anxiety 
you  are  feeling  today  is  centered  around  the 
same  thing  you  were  anxious  about  last  week 
or  last  month  or  last  year,  it  is  just  plain 
worry. 

Worry  is  like  a  tread-mill, — you  work  at 
it  strenuously  but  it  doesn't  get  you  any- 
where. You  are  in  the  same  spot  when  you 
stop  as  when  you  started. 

The  happiness  of  your  life  is  nothing  more 
nor  less  than  the  happiness  of  your  thoughts. 

60 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 
You  have  been  thinking  your  happiness  or 
unhappiness  was  made  by  the  external  fur- 
niture of  your  existence — your  possessions, 
your  friends,  your  experiences,  the  events  of 
your  life.  I  am  going  to  prove  to  you  that 
this  is  not  so. 

Stop  and  think  of  the  various  places  in 
which  you  have  lived.  Some  of  them  were 
more  attractive  than  others.  In  some  of  them 
you  had  more  property,  more  of  the  world's 
goods  than  you  had  in  the  others.  But  if  you 
could  choose  one  of  these  places  and  live  over 
again  all  its  experiences,  you  would  not  always 
choose  the  one  in  which  your  material  posses- 
sions were  the  greatest,  nor  necessarily  the  one 
in  which  your  physical  environment  was  most 
gratifying.  You  would  invariably  choose  to 
live  over  again  the  months  or  years  in  which 
you  had  the  happiest  thoughts,  in  which  youi 
mind  was  most  at  peace.  That  is  because 
your  environment  is  no  hard  and  fast  thing. 
It  is  not  an  aggregate  of  physical  realities. 
Your  environment,  insofar  as  it  affects  your 
happiness,  is  composed,  not  of  the  actualities, 
but  of  a  series  of  mental  pictures. 

Your  environment  is  within  you.  It  is  not 
an  accidental  massing  of  outward  conditions 
but  the  product  of  your  own  mind. 

61 

, 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

I  have  had  it  borne  in  on  me  many  times 
and  in  many  places  that  it  is  not  your  actual 
surroundings  but  your  thoughts  that  deter- 
mine your  happiness. 

In  my  travels  across  the  continent  I  have 
shuddered,  as  we  went  through  the  arid  west- 
ern states,  at  the  sight  of  tumble-down  houses 
whose  broken  windows,  sagging  roofs  and 
decayed  outlines  bespoke  a  life  which  to  me 
would  be  one  of  unbearable  wretchedness. 

But  I  have  talked  with  the  women  who 
lived  there  and  they  have  told  me,  while 
their  ragged  children  clung  to  their  ragged 
aprons,  that  they  did  not  mind  it.  For  they 
did  not  really  live  in  the  hovels  with  the 
broken  windows.  They  lived  in  their  thoughts, 
— the  hopes  of  next  year's  crop  and  the  fu- 
tures of  their  children. 

I  have  seen  the  Chinese  serenely  at  peace  in 
their  hovels  in  San  Francisco's  Chinatown.  I 
have  seen  contentment  and  happiness  among 
the  poorest  immigrants  in  the  tenements  of 
New  York's  East  Side.  Your  real  environ- 
ment is  inside  your  head,  not  your  house. 

Worry  is  mental  auto-intoxication.  You 
are  poisoned  and  poisoned  by  yourself.  You 
veteran  worriers  have  been  imagining  the 
source  of  your  worries  was  in  things  outside 

62 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 
yourselves. .  This  is  true  only  indirectly.    The 
direct  cause  is  your  own  fixed  attitude.     You 
relinquish  the  chair  to  Fear  instead  of  keeping 
it  yourself. 

The  events  of  your  life  affect  your  happi- 
ness only  as  they  color  your  thoughts.  It 
is  not  what  happens  to  you  that  counts,  it 
is  the  way  you  take  what  happens  to  you. 
It  is  never  the  thing  itself  that  hurts  your 
happiness,  it  is  what  you  think  about  the 
thing.  In  other  words,  there  is  no  happiness 
or  unhappiness  outside  of  your  mental  pic- 
tures. 

Every  individual  makes  his  own  mental 
pictures.  His  mind  is  the  moving  picture  cam- 
era that  does  it.  He  does  it  exactly  as  you 
take  any  other  kinds  of  pictures.  He  turns  his 
mind's  eye  on  certain  things  just  as  you  turn 
the  lens  of  the  camera  on  anything  when  you 
wish  to  take  a  picture  of  it.  If  you  turn  it  on 
pleasant  things  it  will  make  you  happy.  If 
you  turn  it  on  unpleasant  ones  it  will  make 
you  unhappy.  Whether  the  picture  is  blurred 
or  distinct  will  depend,  just  as  in  the  ordinary 
camera,  on  the  way  you  focus  it. 

Now,  with  your  mental  camera,  this  focus 
depends  on  attention.  When  you  close  the 
shutter  of  your  mind's  eye  till  it  is  focused 

63 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
on  just  one  thing  you  are  giving  the  con- 
centrated attention  which  will  make  it  a  clear, 
distinct  picture.  And  it  will  be  filed  away 
in  the  album  of  your  memory  as  such.  If 
your  attention  wanders, — if  the  shutter  is 
left  open  so  wide  that  it  takes  in  fringes  of 
the  surrounding  territory, — the  picture  of  the 
thing  itself  is  less  distinct.41 

The  happiness  of  any  individual  begins  and 
ends  with  these  mental  pictures.  There  is  no 
happiness  except  the  contemplation  of  these 
happy  pictures.  There  is  no  unhappiness  save 
contemplation  of  the  unhappy  pictures.  Hap- 
piness comes  from  seeing  yourself  as  you  wish 
to  be. 

Worry  is  the  picturing  of  yourself  in  the  sit- 
uation you  fear. 

Let  me  describe  to  you  what  the  happy 
person  does.  He  has  given  a  standing  order 
to  his  mental  photographer  not  to  take  any 
but  pleasant  pictures.  There  are  just  as  many 
unpleasant  subjects  within  range  of  his  cam- 
era as  there  are  within  yours,  but  he  ignores 
them  and  deliberately  turns  his  on  pleasing 
sights. 


*  For  further   "memory"   psychology   see   Chapter   V   of 
this  book  on  "How  to  Have  a  Good  memory." 

64 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 

The  happy  man  or  woman  you  envy  be- 
cause "they  never  have  any  troubles"  may 
have  harder  ones  than  yours.  If  he  is  an 
average,  self-supporting  person  it  is  certain 
that  he  has  passed  through  about  the  same 
trials,  hardships  and  disappointments  you 
have. 

Though  each  case  is  a  slight  variation,  life 
is  made  up  of  but  a  few  different  kinds  of 
experiences.  Most  of  the  other  people  in 
the  world  have  passed  through  some  phases 
of  each  of  the  main  human  troubles. 

There  are  but  three  kinds  of  troubles  in  the 
world:  Love  troubles,  health  troubles  and 
money  troubles.  Four  great  fears  blacken 
man's  life.  They  are: 

Fear  of  being  unloved. 

Fear  of  being  sick. 

Fear  of  being  poor. 

Fear  of  being  a  failure. 

The  person  who  is  worried  about  love  turns 
his  mind-camera  on  the  very  situation  he 
fears:  He  focuses  his  attention  on  it.  It  is 
a  "movie"  camera.  It  makes  pictures  of  him 
in  all  the  sad  situations  he  can  imagine.  Per- 
haps he  has  no  mate.  Like  all  living  creat- 
tures  he  wants  one.  Instead  of  making  of 

65 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

himself  the  happy  individual  that  easily  wins 
love,  he  devotes  much  of  his  time  to  "worry- 
ing" over  his  condition.  He  mentally  pictures 
himself  a  lonely  bachelor.  He  elongates  the 
picture  into  the  future  and  sees  himself  as  a 
lonely,  unloved  bachelor  to  the  end  of  his 
days.  He  thinks  how  sad  that  is  going  to  be, 
pities  himself  and  dwells  on  the  difficulties  of 
changing  the  situation.  He  sees  himself  grow- 
ing old  with  no  one  really  belonging  to  him 
and  with  no  one  to  whom  he  belongs, — alone 
in  the  world. 

He  sees  himself  dining  alone,  going  to  the 
empty  home  each  night  through  all  the  com- 
ing years.  He  sees  himself  craving,  but 
never  having,  congenial  companionship.  He 
sees  himself  a  white-haired  old  man  with  no 
wife  to  minister  to  him,  and  dying  with  no 
one  to  mourn  for  him. 

When  he  visualizes  these  things  day  after 
day  he  is  doing  what  all  worriers  do, — sitting 
in  the  movie  theatre  of  his  mind  and  running 
the  same  reels  over  and  over  again.  He  is  the 
leading  figure  of  every  picture,  and  he  clearly 
sees  himself  going  through  the  situations  he 
fears. 

The  duality  of  every  man's  nature  is  clearly 
exemplified  in  this,  for  you  are  fully  aware 

66 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 
that  the  real  you,  or  ego,  sits  there  in  the 
front  row  of  your  mental  theatre  watching 
your  other  self  acting  on  the  stage. 

There  is  another  great  law  of  worry.  Worry 
helps  to  bring  about  the  thing  you  worry 
about.  It  brings  it  about  in  this  way:  Every 
thought  tends  to  express  itself  in  action. 
When  you  think  of  yourself  as  unloved, 
lonely,  sad  and  tragic  you  act  unloved,  lonely, 
sad  and  tragic.  No  one  loves  that  kind  of 
person.  So  the  worry  about  being  unloved 
brings  that  very  condition  to  pass. 

Perhaps  you  love  someone  and  are  afraid 
they  do  not  love  you.  You  "worry"  about  it, 
— make  all  the  pictures  for  this  ten-reel  trag- 
edy,— and  gaze  upon  them  in  the  secrecy  of 
your  own  soul. 

These  pictures  show  you  as  you  imagine 
you  are  going  to  look  and  feel  when  you 
have  lost  them;  you  see  the  humiliated  per- 
son you  are  going  to  be;  you  see  the  loved 
one  giving  attentions  to  someone  else;  you 
can  even  see  the  expression  of  solicitude  in 
his  voice  and  eyes  for  that  other  somebody; 
you  picture  yourself  heartbroken,  desolate. 

This  has  the  same  effect  on  you  that  worry 
always  has:  it  makes  you  act  out  in  your 
everyday  existence  the  role  you  played  in 

67 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
these  mental  pictures,  —  the  jealous,  heart- 
broken, desolate  one.  This  makes  you  unat- 
tractive not  only  to  others,  but  to  the  very 
person  whose  love  you  wish  to  have.  We  all 
avoid  the  downcast  individual.  We  have  trou- 
bles enough  of  our  own.  We  like  to  be  with 
the  lighthearted  folks,  because  they  help  us 
forget  these  troubles  of  ours  without  loading 
their  own  upon  us.* 

The  man  who  worries  is  the  shunned  man. 
That  he  needs  us  more  than  the  cheerful  man 
doesn't  make  up  for  the  unpleasant  feelings 
we  get  in  his  company.  So  we  silence  the 
twinges  of  conscience  and  stay  away  from 
him. 

And  there  is  a  justice  in  it  after  all.  For 
the  man  who  is  a  drag  on  his  fellows  has 
nothing  to  contribute  to  the  world.  It  is  the 
man  who  helps  carry  the  world's  burdens  who 
deserves  the  world's  rewards. 

The  world  owes  no  man  anything  save 
what  he  earns,  and  the  chronic  worrier  whose 
countenance  puts  a  damper  on  the  cheer  of 
his  friends  is  a  liability,  not  an  asset.  The 
result  is  that  inevitably  he  gets  treated  as  a 
liability  is  always  treated. 

*  See  further  laws  on  the  power  of  visualization  in  Chap- 
ter III,  this  volume,  "How  to  Be  Self-Confident." 

68 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 

Look  yourself  square  in  the  eye  and  rea- 
lize that  this  is  exactly  what  you  are  in  the 
eyes  of  your  friends  if  you  are  always  worry- 
ing. 

Our  friends  are  the  gateways  through 
which,  directly  or  indirectly,  we  get  every- 
thing that  comes  to  us  in  life.  What  they 
think  of  us  determines  the  way  they  treat  us. 

If  you  are  a  worrier  you  have  few  real 
friends  and  they  give  you  few  chances.  When 
you  get  but  few  chances  to  prove  yourself 
you  are  going  to  get  mighty  little  out  of  life. 
Thus  your  worry  indirectly  but  inexorably 
brings  about  what  you  worry  about 

The  man  of  average  ability  who  is  poor  at 
40  is  usually  poor  because  he  has  concentrated 
his  best  mental  energy  on  the  fear  of  poverty. 
Eighty  per  cent  of  his  mind  was  usually  fas- 
tened, subconsciously,  on  this  fear.  Fear 
shackles.  It  crushes.  It  demoralizes.  It 
chokes  the  mind  and  incapacitates  it  for  think- 
ing of  the  ways  and  means  that  would  bring 
money.  When  only  20  per  cent  of  your  mind 
is  given  to  a  project  that  project  won't  be 
much  of  a  success. 

I  believe  this  fear  of  poverty  is  the  most 
devastating  of  these  four  great  fears.  It  stares 
the  thoughtful  man  in  the  face  from  child- 

69 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
hood  to  old  age.  Not  knowing  the  fatal  effects 
of  worry  he  keeps  his  worry-movie  before  his 
eyes  every  waking  moment, — a  "continuous 
performance."  He  watches  reel  after  reel  of 
the  distressing  pictures, — sees  himself  losing 
the  little  he  has;  sees  his  struggle  to  earn 
more  and  the  failure  to  get  back  on  his  feet; 
the  whole  story  progresses  step  by  step  down- 
ward. In  the  "final"  he  always  gives  himself 
three  alternatives, — dying  in  the  poorhouse, 
dying  alone  in  a  garret,  or,  worst  of  all,  in  the 
home  of  his  uncongenial  relatives. 

Hundreds  of  our  students  have  confessed 
that  these  are  the  very  pictures  they  visualized 
for  years,  in  their  terror  of  "penniless  old 
age." 

You  want  to  make  your  imagination  work 
for  you  from  now  on  instead  of  against  you. 
You  want  to  be  happy  instead  of  unhappy. 
Then  turn  your  mental  camera  on  the  things 
you  desire  instead  of  the  things  you  fear.  In 
other  words,  persistently  give  your  ATTEN- 
TION to  the  contemplation  of  pleasant  possi- 
bilities instead  of  unpleasant  ones. 

Whenever  you  find  that  mental  camera  of 
yours  twisting  around  toward  the  things  you 
dread,  readjust  it  till  it  focuses  on  the  things 
you  want  to  come  true.  Then  center  your 

70 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 
attention  on  them,  concentrate  on  them.  Let 
your  mind  dwell  on  the  happy  scenes;  picture 
yourself  as  doing  what  you  want  to  do,  get- 
ting what  you  want.  Then  you  are  happy 
instead  of  unhappy,  optimistic  instead  of  pes- 
simistic. 

Remember,  the  only  thing  that  makes  the 
happy  man  different  from  the  unhappy  one  is 
that  he  is  constantly  turning  the  eye  of  his 
camera  on  happy  possibilities. 

Habit  plays  a  leading  part  here  as  in  every- 
thing we  do,  and  the  happy  man  is  helped  by 
habit  after  he  has  faithfully  turned  his  camera 
the  right  way  for  a  while. 

You  who  have  been  in  the  habit  of  worry- 
ing will  be  hindered  by  that  same  law  of  habit 
at  first,  but  you  can  break  the  bonds  of  habit 
by  not  attempting  to  break  all  of  them  at  once. 

When  you  sense  the  worry  feeling  com- 
ing over  you, — when  the  unhappy  pictures 
arise  in  your  mind, — don't  try  to  abolish  all 
of  them  at  once. 

Remember,  these  worry  pictures  do  not 
come  all  at  the  same  instant.  They  are  your 
enemies,  but  they  cannot  come  in  a  mob, 
for  the  very  simple  reason  that  the  mind  can 
only  give  attention  to  one  thing  at  a  time. 
Each  one  comes  exactly  like  the  separate  reels 

71 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
of  the  ordinary  movie, — one  at  a  time.  You 
meet  these  thought-enemies  singly.  Because 
you  are  bigger  than  any  of  your  thoughts,  you 
can  defeat  each  one  of  them  as  he  sticks  up 
his  head  if  you  want  to. 

This  is  your  movie  show.  You  are  the 
owner,  proprietor,  cameraman  and  director. 
You  can  stop  the  show  any  instant  and  turn 
on  a  happy  picture. 

Remember,  the  only  happiness  in  life  is  the 
happiness  you  get  out  of  your  mental  images 
just  as  you  make  all  your  unhappiness  by 
your  unhappy  mental  images. 

Let  us  take  an  illustration:  To  be  a  con- 
vict in  prison  is  considered  the  greatest  trag- 
edy that  can  befall  a  man.  This  man  is  con- 
victed and  sent  to  prison  for  25  years.  But 
we  don't  let  him  know  he  is  in  prison,  a 
branded  criminal.  We  keep  these  facts 
from  him.  We  don't  let  them  get  into  his 
mind.  We  convince  him  that  the  prison  is  an 
institution  of  honor  instead  of  dishonor,  that 
his  friends  are  proud  of  him  instead  of 
ashamed  of  him.  In  short,  that  it  is  a  dis- 
tinction to  be  in  prison,  that  it  is  the  place  all 
of  us  want  to  be  and  all  of  its  phases  are  de- 
lightful phases  of  existence. 

Do  you  think  that  man  would  be  unhappy? 
72 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 
Do  you  think  he  would  develop  the  sad  ex- 
pression, the  desolate  stoop  of  the  shoulders, 
the  cringing  attitude?  Do  you  think  it  would 
ruin  his  outlook,  wreck  his  life?  No  indeed. 
He  would  be  happy  every  day  of  the  25  years 
because  his  belief  would  be  a  happy  one,  his 
mental  pictures  would  be  pleasant  ones.  The 
actual  events  of  his  life  would  be  exactly  like 
those  of  every  other  convict.  The  effect  on 
him  would  be  exactly  opposite.  He  would 
leave  there  at  the  end  of  the  25  years  a  proud, 
upstanding,  courageous  man.  He  would  carry 
his  chest  up,  his  head  high.  - 

It  is  never  the  fact  that  a  man's  body  is 
in  prison  which  hurts  him. 

Among  my  acquaintances  are  the  two 
most  famous  prison  wardens  of  the  United 
States, — Thomas  Tynan,  head  of  the  Colorado 
State  Penitentiary,  and  Thomas  Mott  Osborn, 
former  warden  of  Sing  Sing.  Both  of  these 
men  say  it  is  surprising  how  quickly  the  con- 
vict adjusts  himself  to  his  physical  surround- 
ings. 

But  the  thing  that  kills  is  what  goes  on 
in  his  mind, — the  mental  pictures  of  himself 
as  an  outcast. 

So  it  is  with  the  things  that  actually  happen 
to  you.  They  cannot  hurt  you.  You  hurt 

73 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
yourself,  make  yourself  unhappy  because  you 
let  them  give  rise  to  the  wrong  kind  of  mental 
pictures. 

Let  us  take  an  opposite  case,  just  to  con- 
vince you  that  it  is  your  mental  movie  and  not 
the  facts  which  make  the  difference  between 
happiness  and  unhappiness. 

Here  is  a  man  who  is  not  a  convict.  He 
is,  in  fact,  a  highly  respected  and  much  be- 
loved citizen  of  his  community.  But  by  a 
series  of  cleverly  arranged  pretenses  we  con- 
vince him  that  he  has  been  convicted  of 
crime;  we  convince  him  that  he  is  in  prison. 

Now  the  place  where  we  are  keeping  him 
is  not  a  prison.  It  is  a  tall  building  of  beau- 
tiful design.  But  he  does  not  enjoy  its  beauty. 
There  are  flowers  everywhere,  birds  are  sing- 
ing in  the  nearby  trees.  There  are  no  bars 
across  the  windows,  and  no  lock  on  the  gate. 
But  we  convince  him  that  he  cannot  escape. 
He  believes  it. 

We  allow  him  to  do  exactly  as  he  pleases; 
we  let  him  have  family  and  friends  with  him 
precisely  as  before;  we  give  him  everything 
he  asks  for. 

Do  you  think  he  would  be  happy?  No. 
With  everything  tangible  that  he  desired  he 
would  still  be  wretched  because  of  his  imag- 

74 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 
ination  that  he  was  a  prisoner.     His  mental 
images  would  be  unhappy  ones, — made  so, 
not  by  the  things  that  happened  to  him,  but 
by  his  interpretation  of  them. 

And  he  would  leave  this  beautiful  place  at 
the  end  of  even  five  years  a  shame-faced, 
broken  man. 

When  we  took  him  outside  and  showed  him 
how  he  could  have  escaped  at  any  time,  that 
it  wasn't  a  prison  at  all,  we  would  be  doing 
for  him  what  I  want  to  do  in  this  lesson  for 
you — proving  to  him  that  it  isn't  what  hap- 
pens to  you  that  ruins  your  happiness;  it  is 
whether  or  not  you  keep  your  mind  on  pleas- 
ant or  unpleasant  pictures. 

If  this  simile  of  the  mental  pictures  seems 
inadequate  to  you,  just  remember  that  your 
happiness, — the  supreme  aim  of  life, — is  all  in 
thinking,  and  all  thinking  is  a  series  of  men- 
tal pictures. 

If  someone  else  or  some  force  outside  your- 
self made  these  distressing  mental  pictures  of 
yours  there  might  be  some  excuse  for  your 
being  a  "worrier." 

But  you  make  them.  You  take  them,  de- 
velop them  and  then  watch  them  unroll  before 
your  mind, — all  because  you  turned  your  AT- 
TENTION on  the  wrong  scenes. 

75 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
There  are  just  as  many  pleasant  possibil- 
ities in  you  as  in  anybody.  The  external 
world  you  live  in  is  the  same  world  the  happy 
man  lives  in.  The  same  actual  stretch  of  hor- 
izon looms  ahead  of  you  both.  But  he  focuses 
his  attention  on  the  agreeable  and  you  keep 
yours  on  the  disagreeable.* 

And  right  here  let  me  give  you  another 
great  law  not  only  of  psychology  but  of  biol- 
ogy: Nature  is  against  you  when  you  are 
focusing  on  the  unhappy  scenes;  she  is  on 
your  side  whenever  you  are  trying  to  turn 
your  mental  lens  on  the  happy  ones.  Why? 
Because  Nature  is  a  constructive  force.  In 
fact,  "Nature"  is  the  name  we  have  given  to 
the  only  constructive  force  we  know, — the 
force  that  makes  the  grass  grow,  the  flowers 
bloom,  that  cures  the  soldier's  gaping  wounds, 
that  makes  men  and  women  love,  that  makes 
the  millions  of  suns  whirl  throughout  space. 
The  worrier  is  doing  a  destructive  thing  and 
all  nature  opposes  him.  If  he  keeps  trying  he 
can  make  of  himself  a  chronic,  self-starting, 
self-supporting  worrier  to  be  sure,  but  if  he 
can  do  this  with  Nature  against  him,  think 
how  much  easier  he  could  be  a  happy  man. 

*  For  further  extension  of  the  law  of  mental  images,  see 
"The  Power  of  Your  Mind,"  by  Elsie  Lincoln  Benedict. 

76 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 

To  prove  it  to  yourself  do  this:  the  next 
time  a  worry-thought  comes  sneaking  around 
the  door  of  your  mind,  instead  of  flinging  it 
wide  open  and  inviting  it  in,  go  to  the  door 
and  invite  in  the  other  guests  that  constantly 
hover  there, — the  constructive  thoughts,  the 
plans  for  your  future,  the  things  you  have  to 
be  happy  over. 

You  will  be  surprised  to  see  how  gladly  and 
gratefully  they  will  flock  in.  They  do  so  be- 
cause they  are  your  rightful  companions,  the 
friends  Nature  intended  you  to  have. 

God  never  made  any  creature  to  be  un- 
happy or  unsuccessful.  He  intended  every 
living  thing  to  be  joyous,  buoyant,  optimistic, 
and  every  time  we  take  the  slightest  step  to- 
ward them  His  forces  sustain  us.  I  do  not 
know  how  it  is  done.  I  make  no  pretenses  to 
solving  the  "unknowable/*  I  only  know  that 
something  happens  inside  a  man  the  instant 
he  begins  striving  upward  instead  of  down- 
ward, —  a  something  that  helps  him,  that 
strengthens  and  sustains  him. 

The  next  time  you  feel  "blue,"  gently  turn 
your  attention  to  one  little  happy  thought  and 
see  what  happens  to  you. 

The  worrier  does  the  exact  opposite.  When 
the  happy  thoughts  come  trooping  around  the 

77 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

door  of  his  mind  he  ignores  them.  He  keys 
his  mind  for  Worry's  tap,  and  as  if  that  wasn't 
enough  stands  outside  the  door  looking  for 
her.  He  welcomes  her  with  open  arms,  in- 
vites the  hag  into  the  best  parlor  and  visits 
with  her  about  all  the  things  he  is  afraid  of. 

The  sun  is  shining  all  around  him,  the 
world  is  a  good  place,  most  of  the  things  he 
fears  are  not  on  their  way  to  him  at  all,  and 
those  that  are  coming  will  turn  out  to  be  bless- 
ings in  disguise, — but  he  sits  there  letting 
Worry  blacken  the  world  for  him  with  her  in- 
sidious threats.  Happy  thoughts  linger  around 
just  outside,  and  one  gets  near  enough  to 
whisper,  "Maybe  it  will  come  out  all  right." 

Worry  is  such  a  coward  that  even  at  that 
slight  whisper  she  starts  to  crawl  away.  But 
he  brings  her  back,  makes  her  comfortable, 
and,  to  justify  himself  for  entertaining  her, 
says,  "You  see,  Worry,  you  and  I  have  got  to 
get  together  and  look  these  possibilities  all 
over.  To  protect  myself  against  the  worst,  I 
must  know  what  the  very  worst  could  be,  so 
you  just  go  on.  Tell  me  every  awful  thing 
that  might  happen  to  me.  Describe  the  de- 
tails to  me.  Don't  withhold  anything." 

And  Worry,  that  loathsome  scandal-monger 
of  the  human  mind,  whispers  back,  "Well, 

78 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 
here  are  some  of  the  deplorable  things  that 
may  come/' — and  then  she  goes  on  as  long 
as  you  will  give  her  your  attention,  picturing 
to  you  the  gruesome  tragedies  that  are  pos- 
sible. 

You  let  yourself  believe  her.  To  be  sure, 
you  know  that  Worry  is  a  liar.  You  recall 
that  nine-tenths  of  the  awful  things  she  pre- 
dicted in  the  past  never  came  true.  You  be- 
grudge the  time  you  wasted  listening  to  her 
before.  You  realize  all  too  well  if  you  had 
used  that  time  to  do  something  worth  while 
you  would  be  far  ahead  of  where  you  are  to- 
day You  despise  her  for  the  harm  she  has 
done  you.  You  have  nothing  but  contempt 
for  her.  You  wish  she  would  stay  away  from 
you.  You  wish  you  never  had  to  see  her  dis- 
gusting face  again.  And  you  don't  have  to,  if 
you  don't  want  to. 

But  Worry  is  just  like  a  human  being.  She 
gravitates  back  to  the  place  where  she  is  wel- 
comed, and  you  are  so  kind  to  her,  you  give 
her  so  much  attention,  she  hangs  around. 

She  is  also  somewhat  human  in  this:  she 
stays  away  from  the  places  where  she  is  not 
welcomed.  Only  she  is  such  a  cowardly, 
cringing  thing  she  is  much  more  easily  re- 
buffed than  a  human  being.  One  lifting  of 

79 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

your  chest  and  she  vanishes.  Straighten  your 
shoulders,  raise  your  head,  and  she  is  gone. 

To  be  sure,  she  doesn't  go  far  away.  She 
watches  for  the  flash  to  die  out  of  your  eye, 
the  droop  to  come  back  to  your  shoulders, 
for  she  knows  what  that  means  in  your  men- 
tal attitude.  She  knows  the  stooped  man  is 
her  prey.  All  thoughts  have  their  physiologi- 
cal expression  and  one  always  begets  the 
other.  The  sunken  chest  is  the  mate  of  Dis- 
couragement. The  lifted  chest  is  the  mate  of 
Courage.  They  are  like  two  animals  in  the 
jungle:  when  you  see  one  you  know  the  other 
is  not  far  away.  So  when  Worry  sees  your 
head  high  she  slinks  farther  away.  Try  it 
and  see. 

Don't  continue  to  labor  under  the  delusion 
that  it  is  hard  to  stop  worrying.  You  make 
hard  work  of  it  because  you  go  at  it  wrong. 

You  try  to  slay  all  your  enemies  at  once. 
You  forget  that  the  only  enemies  to  your 
happiness  are  your  thoughts  and  you  cannot 
have  two  thoughts  at  once. 

All  you  need  to  do  to  get  rid  of  Worry  is 
to  let  another  visitor  in. 

Have  you  ever  seen  how  a  cringing  coward 
acts  when  a  splendid  individual  joins  the 
group?  He  slips  away.  Worry  is  the  worst 

80 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 
coward  in  the  world.  The  minute  you  open 
the  door  of  your  mind  to  the  courageous 
thoughts  that  hover  there,  she  wraps  her  rags 
about  her  and  slinks  out.  You  don't  need  to 
order  her  to  go.  Don't  dignify  her  that  much. 
Don't  recognize  Worry  as  worthy  of  your 
consideration.  She  is  nothing  but  a  black 
Nothingness  created  by  the  weak  side  of  your 
own  mind  anyhow.  She  has  no  existence  save 
as  you  create  and  recreate  her. 

Never  be  afraid  that  the  good  thoughts 
aren't  just  outside  the  door.  What  is  it  that 
keeps  every  living  creature  battling  hopefully 
to  the  last  minute  of  life? — that  sustains  the 
sick,  the  decrepit,  the  defeated,  and  lures 
them  to  fight  on?  It  is  these  encouraging 
thought-friends.  They  are  always  there,  re- 
assuring you,  whispering  hope  into  your  ear 
whenever  you  stop  gossipping  with  Worry 
long  enough  to  listen. 

In  this  lesson  I  do  not  ask  you  to  tackle 
Worry  and  forcibly  eject  her.  That  is  not 
necessary.  Open  the  door  of  your  mind  to 
the  tiniest  constructive  thought  and  before 
you  can  see  what  is  happening,  Worry  dodges 
away. 

This  is  due  to  a  psychological  law  and  the 
law  is  this:  thoughts  are  accompanied  by  emo- 

81 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
tional  qualities  or  "tone."    Every  thought  you 
have  gives  rise  to  a  definite,  though  sometimes 
imperceptible,  reaction. 

Whenever  thoughts  of  achievement,  health, 
love  or  prosperity  cross  your  mind  you  exper- 
ience a  feeling  of  courage,  energy  and  stim- 
ulation. 

Whenever  ideas  of  death,  disease  or  failure 
flit  across  your  mind  you  experience  instan- 
taneously a  feeling  of  lethargy,  inertia  and  im- 
potence. Sad  memories,  remorse  or  fear  have 
associated  with  them  disintegrating  emotional 
qualities. 

Exalted  ideas,  inspiring  hopes  have  asso- 
ciated with  them  energizing  and  vitalizing 
emotional  qualities.  Such  is  the  miraculous 
mechanism  of  the  human  mind. 

As  we  have  seen,  all  happiness  or  unhap- 
piness  comes  from  your  mental  pictures. 
They  come  because  your  mental  pictures  are 
each  mated  to  an  emotion. 

Unhappiness  is  the  massed  emotion  from  a 
series  of  unhappy  pictures.  Your  mind- 
camera  is  taking  pictures  for  you  every  wak- 
ing moment,  and  just  as  long  as  you  turn  it 
on  unpleasant  thoughts  you  will  have  un- 
happy emotions  or  worry. 

82 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 

Worry  comes  from  exaggerating  the  im- 
portance of  ourselves.  It  is  a  big  universe 
and  what  happens  to  you  and  me  doesn't 
make  such  a  lot  of  difference  after  all.  Even 
to  you  and  me  it  doesn't  make  much  differ- 
ence. Think  where  you  will  be  a  hundred 
years  from  today.  Think  where  you  will  be 
one  year  from  today.  A  year  from  today  you 
will  say  today's  worries  were  wrong,  useless, 
demoralizing. 

Knowing  this  is  what  you  will  say  about 
them  only  a  year  hence,  why  not  push  your 
imaginary  clock  a  year  ahead  and  say  it  now? 

Give  today  to  something  constructive.  Give 
it  to  something  which  you  can  be  proud  of  a 
year  from  today. 

When  you  find  yourself  taking  yourself 
and  your  little  life  too  seriously,  turn  to  that 
famous  story  of  *  'Captain  Stormfield's  Visit  to 
Heaven,"  which  Mark  Twain  wrote.  For  fear 
you  can't  get  it  in  a  hurry  when  you  need  it,  I 
will  give  you  the  gist  of  it  here. 

The  Captain  found  great  difficulty  in  mak- 
ing clear  to  the  angel  at  the  gate  just  who  he 
was.  He  was  sure  St.  Peter  would  remember 
him  as  soon  as  he  mentioned  his  name.  He 
greeted  him  familiarly  and  announced  he  was 
Captain  Stormfield. 

83 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

St.  Peter  didn't  seem  to  know  of  any  such 
man.  Then  he  explained  that  he  came  from 
San  Francisco.  Nobody  in  heaven  had  heard 
of  San  Francisco.  Then  he  told  them  San 
Francisco  was  in  California.  That  meant 
nothing,  so  he  informed  them  that  California 
was  in  the  United  States.  The  United  States, 
he  said,  were  in  America.  Nobody  had  ever 
heard  of  America. 

At  last  he  told  them  he  came  from  the 
Earth.  After  a  long  search  through  the  ar- 
chives, someone  discovered  a  slight  reference 
to  a  speck,  out  among  the  billions  and  billions 
of  stars,  planets  and  constellations,  called  the 
Earth. 

The  marvels  of  time  are  as  wonderful  as 
the  marvels  of  space.  This  is  a  Big  Show. 
Nobody  knows  how  many  billions  of  centuries 
it  has  been  running,  where  it  started  or  where 
it  is  going. 

You  and  I  are  infinitesimal  atoms.  If  the 
worst  thing  that  could  happen  to  an  atom 
happened  to  us  it  wouldn't  be  very  impor- 
tant. About  the  only  thing  we  can  do  to 
prevent  being  even  more  insignificant  is  to 
be  as  constructive  as  we  can.  To  do  this  you 
must  remove  worry  from  your  mind,  for 
worry  is  destructive. 

84 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 

If  you  worry  about  failure  just  remember 
that  nothing  will  bring  failure  so  surely  or  so 
quickly  as  worry.  Your  place  in  life  today  is 
the  massed  result  of  the  thoughts  of  yester- 
day. Your  life  is  made,  to  an  astounding  de- 
gree, by  your  thinking.  If  you  would  realize 
success  tomorrow,  think  success  today. 

No  worrier  ever  achieved  success.  You 
know  why.  Your  success  in  this  highly  or- 
ganized social  structure  depends  to  a  great 
extent  on  other  people.  What  other  people 
think  of  you  determines  the  chances  to  be 
offered  to  you  this  coming  year.  If  you  are 
a  worrier  they  know  it.  Nobody  dares  trust 
a  worrier. 

It  takes  clear  concentration  to  accomplish 
anything.  The  worrier  can't  concentrate  on 
his  work  because  most  of  his  attention  is  con- 
centrated on  himself — turned  inward  on  his 
petty  personal  concerns.  If  you  worry  about 
ill  health  you  start  ill  health. 

Your  worry  thoughts  create  toxins  which, 
as  you  have  seen  in  the  preceding  lesson,  poi- 
son the  entire  system. 

Your  body  and  mind  are  closely  related. 
No  worrier  can  stay  well.  His  worry  is  a  fac- 
tory that  works  overtime  manufacturing  dis- 
ease. 

85 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

If  you  are  one  of  those  who  have  a  vague 
fear  of  what  the  future  may  bring;  of  what 
may  "happen  to  befall,"  remember  that  you, 
not  Chance,  are  the  architect  of  your  future. 
You  are  building  toward  it  today.  The  plans 
and  specifications  are  all  drawn  by  your  mind. 

If  you  are  keeping  your  mind  busy  drawing 
pictures  of  the  things  you  dread,  you  are  not 
only  giving  it  no  time  to  plan  constructively 
but  are  allowing  it  to  make  the  very  outlines 
you  don't  want  to  follow. 

Every  thought  tends  to  express  itself  in  ac- 
tion. This  is  a  fundamental  psychological 
law.  You  can't  think  one  way  and  act  an- 
other; you  can't  think  failure  and  build  suc- 
cess. 

If  you  worry  over  your  past,  you  are  like 
a  certain  type  of  the  insane.  All  asylums 
are  acquainted  with  the  inmate  who  sits  re- 
hearsing the  events  of  his  past  and  refuses 
even  to  dress  himself  for  the  day. 

If  you  are  concentrating  on  unhappy  mem- 
ories, you  are  refusing  to  meet  today.  If  you 
are  permitting  grief,  remorse,  bitterness  or  re- 
gret to  absorb  the  very  source  of  your  crea- 
tive powers, — your  mind, — you  are  commit- 
ting mild  suicide. 

Tomorrow  this  day  will  be  a  part  of  your 
86 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 

past.  If  you  waste  it  you  add  the  regret  of 
having  wasted  it  to  the  long  list  of  regrets  you 
already  have. 

If  you  would  lessen  tomorrow's  remorse, 
make  Today  constructive. 

Bury  your  past  and  don't  visit  the  grave. 
If  you  did  things  or  failed  to  do  things  that 
hurt  you  in  the  past  don't  let  them  stretch 
their  slimy  hands  into  your  future  and  ruin 
that  also. 

The  past  is  gone.  It  will  never  return.  You 
knew  this  before  I  told  you.  The  idea  is  not 
original  with  me. 

If  you  will  thrust  your  past  out  of  your 
consciousness  whenever  it  raises  its  accusing 
head  it  can  do  you  no  harm.  It  can  only 
harm  you  as  you  give  it  your  attention. 
Transfer  your  attention  to  other  things  when- 
ever it  approaches  and  it  will  eventually  re- 
turn no  more. 

No  matter  what  you  have  done  or  left  un- 
done it  is  over  and  done  with.  If  you  did 
wrong  you  are  making  it  worse  by  burning  the 
incense  of  memory  at  its  altar.  If  you  com- 
mitted a  sin  you  are  dyeing  it  deeper  every 
time  you  honor  it  with  your  thoughts,  for 
your  thoughts  make  it  live  again  and  nothing 
else  can. 

87 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

If  it  was  a  real  sin  the  only  atonement  you 
can  make  is  to  devote  your  attention  to  its 
opposite  now.  If  you  think  about  it  you  are 
incapable  of  doing  its  opposite  for  our  ac- 
tions follow  our  thoughts.  The  man  who 
worries  over  his  past  sins  is  piling  up  sins  in 
today. 

No  matter  what  you  have  done,  no  matter 
of  what  crime  you  may  be  guilty,  raise  your 
chest,  lift  your  head,  look  the  world  in  the 
eye. 

I  want  you  to  do  this  because  these  are 
the  first  steps  toward  accomplishing  anything 
great. 

If  you  have  done  wrong  in  the  past  you 
want  to  make  up  for  it  in  the  future.  You 
can't  do  anything  to  make  up  for  it  if  you  go 
around  with  your  head  hanging. 

No  human  being  has  a  right  to  ask  you  to 
hang  your  head  anyhow.  All  human  beings 
are  pretty  much  alike.  We  are  all  of  us  big 
bundles  of  instincts.  Crime  is  the  overindul- 
gence of  instinct. 

With  the  same  instinct  equally  developed 
and  the  temptation  equally  great,  the  people 
who  are  criticizing  you  would  doubtless  have 
done  just  as  you  did,  maybe  worse. 

88 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 
Stop  despising  yourself.  God  made  you. 
He  gave  you  the  instincts.  He  knows  your 
temptations.  He  knows  that  every  human 
being  does  the  best  he  can  under  every  given 
circumstance,  with  the  nature  he  has, — not 
necessarily  the  best  he  knows,  but  the  very 
best  the  combination  of  his  particular  instincts 
plus  his  particular  temptation  permitted  of  at 
the  time. 

Don't  let  anyone  tell  you  that  God  likes  to 
see  you  ashamed,  stricken,  crushed  to  earth. 
That  is  man's  poor  little  mean  way, — the 
craving  to  see  those  who  disobey  him  humil- 
iated. 

The  Force  that  rules  the  universe,  that 
keeps  myriads  of  worlds  operating  with  divine 
accuracy  throughout  unfathomable  space, 
must  be  a  constructive  Power.  The  only  sure 
way  to  worship  it  is  not  in  self-abasement  but 
in  self-mastery. 

The  bigger  your  sin  the  greater  the  need 
for  your  doing  something  splendid  today.  No 
man  ever  did  anything  splendid  whose  head 
hung  in  shame.  Lift  yours  to  the  sun.  It 
will  tell  you  more  about  the  real  God  than 
all  the  human  beings  can  tell  you  in  a  thou- 
sand years. 

89 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
It  will  tell  you  that  everything  from  sun- 
flowers to  human  beings  must  keep  their  faces 
upturned  toward  the  light  if  they  would  grow. 

You  have  a  future  to  build.  The  more  re- 
grettable your  past  the  more  necessary  is  it 
that  you  build  a  shining,  worth-while  future. 
You  can't  build  anything  worth-while  with 
your  eyes  on  the  past. 

What  would  you  think  of  a  driver  who  tried 
to  steer  his  car  up  a  rocky  grade  with  his  eyes 
on  the  road  behind  him  instead  of  the  road 
ahead? 

What  if  he  kept  looking  at  all  the  crooked 
tracks  he  had  made  back  there  and  scolding 
himself  for  them? 

What  if  he  said  over  and  over,  "Oh,  what 
a  mistake  that  was!  I  should  have  known 
better!  That  was  a  blunder,  over  there  was 
another  and  away  back  there  several  miles  I 
nearly  ran  into  the  ditch!"  Perhaps  he  ac- 
tually had  a  blow-out  or  a  wreck  somewhere 
back  there. 

Would  you  expect  anything  like  expert 
driving  from  that  man  if  he  kept  worrying 
about  that  wreck?  No  indeed.  You  would 
tell  him  to  forget  the  crooked  tracks,  the  nar- 
row escapes.  Yes,  and  the  wreck,  too. 

90 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 

Nobody  is  going  to  take  the  trouble  to  trace 
the  windings  of  your  route. 

It  isn't  as  popular  today  to  be  a  self-con- 
stituted detective  as  it  used  to  be.  Human 
bloodhounds  no  longer  have  standing  even  in 
the  church.  The  man  or  woman  who  today 
takes  it  upon  himself  to  pry  into  the  poor, 
unhappy  past  of  another  struggling  human 
atom  is  no  longer  credited  with  virtuous  mo- 
tives. We  know  him  for  just  what  he  is, — a 
scavenger. 

The  man  who  tells  anything  derogatory  to 
another  human  being  is  telling  a  much  worse 
story  on  himself.  He  is  telling  that  he  has  a 
putrefying  mind. 

Each  of  us  sees  the  world  through  our  own 
spectacles.  Keeping  rosy  glasses  before  your 
eyes  makes  the  world  a  beautiful  place.  Wear- 
ing dark  ones  will  not  make  the  world  dark, 
but  it  will  make  it  dark  for  you. 

If  you  have  a  habit  of  seeing  evil  in  others 
it  is  because  you  have  evil  in  you.  For  we 
not  only  wear  our  own  glasses,  we  make  our 
own  glasses  out  of  our  minds. 

You  are  driving  the  car  of  your  life  up  the 
arduous  grade  of  the  future.  Every  time  you 
look  behind  you  you  are  missing  the  best 

91 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
place  in  the  road  of  today.    That  means  more 
crooked  tracks  for  you  to  regret  tomorrow. 

If  you  don't  want  all  the  Tomorrows  filled 
with  regrets  for  Today's  poor  driving,  forget 
the  poor  driving  of  Yesterday  and  steer  the 
best  you  can  from  this  point  onward. 

The  tracks  you  have  made,  bad  as  they  may 
have  been,  are  not  very  different  from  those 
of  your  fellow  travelers,  after  all.  We  are 
all  surprisingly  alike.  Kipling  expressed  it 
when  he  said,  "The  Colonel's  lady  and  Judy 
O'Grady  are  sisters  under  the  skin."  Alice 
Duer  Miller  had  Life's  roadway  in  mind  when 
she  said, 

"Democracy  is  this: 

To  hold  that  all  who  wander  down  the  pike 

In  car  or  cart,  on  foot  or  bike, 

Are  much  alike,  are  much  alike." 

You  may  be  riding  up  this  highway  of  life 
on  the  bicycle  of  a  20-dollar-a-week  job;  you 
may  be  ambling  along  in  a  10-dollar-a-week 
cart,  but  don't  let  these  things  humiliate  you. 

There  is  mighty  little  difference  between 
you  and  the  man  who  skims  past  you  in  the 
big  limousine.  Realize  this  fully  and  you  will 
have  taken  the  first  step  toward  a  limousine  of 
your  own. 

92 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 

Don't  spend  your  precious  time  envying  the 
other  fellow  near  you  on  the  road.  Don't 
salve  your  wounds  with  the  notion  that  he 
stole  his  limousine  or  got  a  "head  start." 
These  things  have  been  done  but  those  who  do 
them  don't  last.  They  fall  behind  in  the  race. 

For  it  isn't  the  car  you  ride  in  that  counts  or 
even  the  "start"  found  in  the  money  some 
people  inherit.  The  man  who  inherits  a  "head 
start"  isn't  as  well  equipped  as  the  one  who 
reaches  the  same  place  by  his  own  efforts. 

When  the  race  ends  it  is  the  man  who  has 
struggled  every  inch  of  the  way  who  makes 
good. 

The  thing  that  counts  is  your  driving.  It's 
the  way  you  steer  and  handle  your  "bike" 
that  wins  you  a  Ford  or  a  limousine  farther  up 
the  hill. 

Life  is  a  relay  race.  You  change  to  a  faster 
vehicle  as  soon  as  you  have  earned  it.  The 
road  is  lined  with  all  kinds  of  cars.  The  kind 
you  will  have  next  year  depends  on  the  effi- 
ciency of  this  year's  driving,  and  the  amount 
of  excess  baggage  you  have  in  your  load.  All 
regrets,  remorse  and  despair  over  Yesterday 
are  so  much  excess  baggage.  Get  rid  of  them. 

In  the  famous  Marathon  races  of  ancient 
times  the  runners  stripped  themselves  of 

93 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
everything  that  could  in  any  way  hinder  free- 
dom of  movement  or  impede  their  progress. 

Rid  yourself  of  everything  that  handicaps 
your  efforts.  Let  go  of  everything  that  shack- 
les you.  Strip  clean  for  the  big  race.  Un- 
load from  your  car  every  ounce  of  chagrin 
and  self -depreciation.  Travel  "light"  as  the 
globe  trotters  say. 

Then  to  win,  keep  your  hand  on  the  wheel, 
your  eye  on  the  road  ahead  and  don't  let  any- 
one pass  you  in  your  own  make  of  car. 

You  are  going  to  dump  out  of  your  car  to- 
day the  load  of  sadness,  sorrow  and  regret 
you  have  been  carrying.  As  you  throw  each 
one  away  take  a  good  look  at  it  and  find 
what  there  was  in  it  that  taught  you  some- 
thing. 

Every  unhappy  experience  you  ever  had 
concealed  a  lesson  in  it  somewhere.  If  you 
don't  know  where,  scrutinize  it  till  you  find  it. 

I  do  not  maintain  that  all  your  troubles  are 
sent  by  a  benign  Providence  as  blessings  in 
disguise.  Most  of  your  troubles  are  the  result 
of  your  having  violated  natural  law. 

But  I  do  know  that  you  can  sift  out  of  each 
tragedy  a  grain  or  two  of  knowledge  that  will 
protect  you  in  the  future. 

94 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 

It  often  happens  that  the  tragedy  it  pre- 
vents would  have  been  worse  than  the  one 
you  had.  Many  a  man  has  said  that  his  suc- 
cess was  built  on  the  knowledge  gained  from 
his  failures. 

My  own  success,  which  has  emancipated 
me  from  every  anxiety,  is  my  failures  capital- 
ized. I  cashed  in  on  my  mistakes. 

I  made  some  of  the  worst  ones;  the  num- 
ber and  variety  of  my  blunders,  sins  and  fail- 
ures was  alarming.  And  how  I  worried  about 
them!  I  dragged  around  with  me  more  dead 
weight  of  depression  than  anyone  I  knew. 

It  is  a  long  story,  how  I  changed  my  life, 
but  it  can  all  be  told  in  this:  I  determined  to 
cast  off  every  form  of  fear.  I  did  it  by  turn- 
ing my  attention  away  from  past  failures  and 
concentrating  it  on  ways  and  means  for  pro- 
fiting by  those  failures.  Today  I  have  those 
old  tragedies  to  thank  for  my  happiness  and 
achievement. 

One  of  the  best  antidotes  for  "past"  and 
"future"  worries  is  to  let  yourself  live  more 
in  the  "now."  Live  today  within  today. 
After  all,  the  only  living  you  ever  do  is  what 
you  do  in  the  eternal  Now. 

Man  crucifies  himself  between  two  thieves. 
On  one  side  is  the  thief  of  the  Past,  a  dark- 

95 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

visaged  spectre  of  lost  opportunities,  blasted 
hopes,  blighted  ambitions.  On  the  other  is 
the  Future, — glowing,  rosy,  radiant  with  the 
things  we  hope  to  achieve, — but  in  reality  as 
dangerous  a  thief  as  the  other,  for  he  deters 
you  from  effort,  with  his  false  promises.  He 
justifies  your  neglected  tasks,  your  wasted 
hours  and  slipshod  ways  by  saying,  "I  am 
going  to  make  up  for  it  in  the  future." 

That  lying,  luring  phantom, — the  phantom 
of  a  Tomorrow  that  is  never  here, — steak 
your  life. 

Remember,  Today  is  all  you  have.  Yes- 
terday is  gone  forever  and  Tomorrow  will 
never  come. 

Everything  that  was  ever  done  was  done 
in  the  glorious  living  Todays.  Today  you  are 
alive.  Today  is  here.  Today  is  yours.  You 
can  use  it  or  throw  it  away. 

The  difference  between  those  who  achieve 
and  those  who  fail  is  that  the  achieving  ones 
value  their  Todays. 

I  saw  something  once  that  graphically  im- 
pressed this  upon  my  mind. 

I  was  on  a  train  going  to  keep  a  Chautau- 
qua  engagement.  At  a  small  station  an  old 
lady  and  her  son  got  on  and  took  the  section 
opposite  me. 

96 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 

The  mother  had  brought  so  many  bundles 
that  there  was  not  room  for  the  son,  so  he 
came  over  and  sat  with  me. 

He  explained  that  this  was  his  mother's 
first  railroad  journey.  She  was  very  old  and 
disliked  the  idea  of  going  away  from  her  own 
home  even  to  visit  relatives. 

But  they  had  at  last  induced  her  to  take  this 
little  trip  of  twenty  miles  to  Springfield,  where 
her  other  son  lived.  She  was  as  excited  as  a 
child  and  had  looked  forward  with  the  greatest 
anticipation  to  the  journey. 

But  she  had  insisted  on  bringing  with  her  as 
many  of  her  belongings  as  both  of  them  could 
carry.  She  was  almost  submerged  under  the 
piles  of  bundles,  grips,  suitcases,  packages, 
bird  cages  and  boxes,  and  these  she  kept  re- 
arranging, changing  and  fussing  over. 

Her  son,  who  wanted  her  to  see  all  the  in- 
teresting things  along  the  way,  would  lean 
over  every  few  moments  and  say,  "Look, 
Mother,"  but  the  old  lady,  without  turning 
away  from  her  packages,  answered,  "Yes,  son, 
just  as  soon  as  I  get  these  things  fixed  the  way 
I  want  them." 

It  was  a  pretty  stretch  of  country  in  a  New 
England  state.  Low  hills,  carpeted  with  fresh 
spring  grass,  rolled  away  to  the  eastward. 

97 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
We  heard  a  meadowlark  here  and  there.    But 
the  old  lady  was  too  intent  on  her  belongings 
to  look  up. 

After  a  while,  just  as  she  seemed  to  have 
the  last  box  stowed  away  and  everything  ad- 
justed to  suit  her,  the  conductor  came  down 
the  aisle  calling,  "Springfield, — all — off — for 
— Springfield,"  and  at  his  heels  the  porter, 
reaching  for  the  old  lady's  bundles. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  dismayed  look  on 
her  face.  "You  don't  mean  this  is  where  I  get 
off!  Oh,  I  just  got  my  things  fixed  ready  to 
enjoy  the  scenery!  Surely  it's  a  mistake. 
This  can't  be  our  station." 

The  porter  assured  her  it  was  and  hustled 
her  and  her  possessions  out  on  the  platform. 

There  are  a  lot  of  people  like  that  old  lady. 
I  used  to  be.  Maybe  you  are.  You  are  al- 
ways getting  ready  to  live,  preparing  to  enjoy 
life.  You  are  spending  all  your  thought  on 
the  petty  concerns  of  today, — the  little  bun- 
dles of  daily  worries, — with  never  an  outward 
gaze  toward  the  beauties  on  the  horizon. 

And  some  day,  just  as  you  get  the  poor  lit- 
tle affairs  adjusted  ready  to  sit  back  and  live, 
the  Conductor  will  call  your  station;  the  black 
porter,  Death,  will  turn  deaf  ears  to  your  wails 

98 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 
and  hustle  you  off  the  car.     The  train  will 
go  on  without  you. 

Today  you  are  still  on  that  train.  It  is  fly- 
ing faster  than  the  Twentieth  Century  Lim- 
ited, which  makes  the  trip  between  New  York 
and  Chicago  in  eighteen  hours. 

Every  day,  every  hour  you  are  passing 
through  a  wonderful  country,  which  you  will 
have  no  chance  to  see  again. 

Life  is  a  one-way  journey  on  a  Limited, — 
no  round  trips  and  no  stops. 

If  you  want  to  make  the  most  of  it,  arrange 
your  baggage  by  organizing  yourself  effi- 
ciently. Then  take  time  to  enjoy  the  journey. 

No  man  ever  sank  under  the  burdens  of 
today.  It  is  only  when  we  add  to  Today's 
burdens  the  memory  of  Yesterday's  and  the 
imagination  of  Tomorrow's  that  the  load 
seems  more  than  we  can  bear. 

You  are  called  upon  to  live  only  one  minute 
at  a  time.  Control  your  thinking  minute  by 
minute  and  you  have  solved  the  worry  prob- 
lem. 

The  usual  way  people  set  about  stopping 
worry  is  a  wrong  one.  That  is  why  it  is  so 
unsuccessful.  The  worrier  tries  to  cure  him- 
self by  the  sheer  power  of  his  will.  This  is  a 
mistake. 

99 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
Worry  is  never  to  be  beaten  by  force.    You 
have  got  to  replace  it  with  something  else. 

When  your  mind  gets  to  dwelling  upon 
some  one  troublesome  matter  with  feverish 
insistence,  when  you  find  yourself  irritable, 
depressed,  overwrought,  gently  turn  your  at- 
tention to  something  else. 

At  first  you  will  be  troubled  by  your  mind 
slipping  off  the  thoughts.  Bring  it  back  each 
time,  not  with  a  jerk,  not  with  force,  but 
quietly,  patiently.  Do  this  each  time  and 
after  a  few  times  it  will  be  less  inclined  to 
wander. 

This  is  not  only  the  secret  of  conquering 
worry  but  of  developing  the  most  valuable  of 
all  mental  faculties, — concentration. 

Your  attention  is  what  determines  your 
happiness.  You  control  your  attention.  You 
are  its  master.  You  can,  at  any  moment,  take 
it  away  from  one  thing  and  place  it  on  an- 
other. Unless  you  are  feeble-minded  you  can 
do  this,  and  I  know  you  are  not  feeble-minded 
because  no  feeble-minded  person  would  be 
interested  in  reading  this  book. 

You  cannot  kill  worry  by  blows  or  any  kind 
of  direct  fighting.  You  can't  kill  it  by  sim- 
ply saying,  "I  am  not  going  to  worry." 

100 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 

If  you  went  into  a  dark  room  and  wanted  it 
light  you  would  not  try  shoveling  out  the 
darkness,  would  you?  You  would  turn  on 
the  light. 

Worry  is  a  mental  darkness.  Picks  and 
shovels  won't  remove  it,  but  turning  on  the 
light  will. 

Here  is  another  natural  law:  No  two  things 
can  occupy  the  same  space  at  the  same  time. 
No  two  thoughts  can  occupy  your  mind  at  the 
same  time. 

Whenever  you  want  to  be  rid  of  a  worry 
thought,  deliberately  turn  on  the  light  by 
turning  to  a  pleasant  thought.  You  can  think 
only  one  thing  at  a  time  and  if  you  think 
courage  or  joy  you  can't  think  worry  thoughts 
at  the  same  time. 

The  cure  is  for  you  to  make,  through  your 
own  will  power.  I  am  only  the  messenger  of 
truth,  the  purveyor  of  this  knowledge.  No 
one  can  make  you  stop  worrying.  I  am  show- 
ing you  in  this  lesson  just  how  you  can  cure 
yourself. 

The  foundation  upon  which  this  lesson  is 
based  is  the  great  law  that  no  two  objects  can 
occupy  the  same  space  at  the  same  time.  I 
repeat  it  here  for  it  is  the  most  important 
thing  in  this  lesson. 

101 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

When  worry  is  occupying  your  attention 
all  good  thoughts  are  shut  out.  When  con- 
fidence is  in  possession,  worry  is  out.  That 
is  all  there  is  to  the  law  of  worry, — a  big  law 
but  simple  to  operate  just  as  the  greatest  ma- 
chinery is  operated  by  the  pressing  of  a  but- 
ton. 

The  fact  is  that  the  real  responsibility  rests 
upon  you.  And  that  is  just,  for  the  man  who 
wouldn't  brace  up  enough  to  apply  these  sim- 
ple rules  hasn't  earned  peace  of  mind. 

Whether  or  not  you  are  worth  saving  is 
somewhat  determined  by  whether  or  not  you 
have  the  little  bit  of  backbone  necessary  to 
follow  these  few  rules  in  your  daily  life. 

Start  today  with  the  fixed  conviction  that 
worry  is  a  mental  condition;  that  it  is  unreal 
and  like  all  unreal  things  cannot  hurt  you  un- 
less you  are  afraid  and  even  then  it  is  only 
your  own  fear  that  hurts  you. 

Worry  may  make  horrible  pictures  in  your 
mind;  she  may  distort  and  magnify  your  prob- 
lems. But  if  you  will  put  a  little  starch  into 
your  jawbone  and  your  backbone  you  can 
expel  her  instantly. 

She  may  come  back,  that  is  true.  But  if 
you  can  throw  her  out  once  you  can  again. 

102 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 
You  can't  cut  down  a  tree  with  one  blow  of 
the  axe.     But  many  blows  and  it  falls  for 
good. 

Your  brain  is  a  garden.  In  it  there  are  roses 
and  weeds  fighting  for  possession.  If  you  let 
the  weeds  get  ahead  the  roses  will  die.  But 
if  you  will  snip  off  the  weeds  as  fast  as  they 
appear  above  the  ground,  the  roses  will  thrive. 

You  must  be  vigilant.  You  must  nip  your 
bad  thoughts  in  the  bud.  Whenever  a  worry 
weed  pops  up  in  your  mental  garden,  call  on 
your  will  power  for  its  scissors.  Say  to  your- 
self, "This  thing  is  negative,  unreal;  it  is  a 
bugaboo,  a  black  nothingness.  And  I,  a  hu- 
man being,  a  living,  thinking  creature,  am  not 
going  to  be  downed  by  a  thing  that  does  not 
exist." 

You  are  free.  You  have  your  place  in  the 
world.  You,  and  nothing  else,  are  master  of 
your  thoughts.  You  have  enough  will  power 
at  this  moment  to  carry  you  through,  and 
you  are  going  to  have  more  when  you  have 
read  Chapter  VI  of  this  book  on  "How  to 
Build  Will  Power." 

You  must  fear  no  evil.  The  worst  evil  that 
can  befall  you  is  worry  and  you  can  forestall 
that.  The  weeds  in  your  brain  garden  will 

103 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
die  of  neglect  if  you  spend  your  attention  on 
nourishing  the  flowers. 

The  next  time  things  are  discouraging  to 
you,  instead  of  weeping  at  the  shrine  of  Fear, 
try  this:  At  first,  if  it  seems  hard  to  smile  or 
transfer  your  thoughts,  walk  to  your  open 
window;  raise  your  chest;  lift  your  head  and 
breathe  deeply  for  just  two  minutes.  You 
will  be  amazed  to  see  what  happens  to  you. 
You  are  not  as  worried  as  you  were  two  min- 
utes before. 

No  one  can  be  desolate  when  his  lungs  are 
full  of  good  fresh  air.  All  worry  is  some- 
what physical,  and  when  your  lungs  are  full 
of  good  air  all  your  physical  processes  are 
vitalized. 

Now  if  air  was  something  only  millionaires 
could  get  there  would  be  some  excuse  for  you. 
But  it  is  the  freest  thing  in  the  world.  It  is 
our  greatest  necessity  and  God  put  it  every- 
where for  us.  One  good  lungful  of  it  and  you 
are  a  changed  man. 

You  see  Nature  is  your  friend,  the  guardian 
angel  that  hovers  over  you  every  moment, 
ready  to  help  you  the  instant  you  will  let  her. 
For  Nature,  you  know,  has  her  big  purpose 
of  life  preservation  in  view,  and  the  weakling 
thwarts  that  purpose.  The  moment  you  start 

104 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 
being  strong  she  puts  her  forces  behind  you. 
If  you  keep  trying  she  will  see  that  you  don't 
fail. 

Hereafter,  when  worry  thoughts  creep  in, 
when  depressing  mental  pictures  begin  to  get 
hold  of  you,  take  the  deep  breaths  that  start 
your  blood  racing.  This  gives  you  pleasanter 
thoughts  for  the  simple,  scientific  reason  that 
no  brain  can  have  "the  blues"  when  the  blood 
is  circulating  rapidly  through  it. 

Depression  is  always  associated  with  slug- 
gish physical  processes  and  especially  with 
lazy  blood  circulation.  Every  deep  breath 
speeds  up  heart  action  and  thus  stirs  the  whole 
circulatory  system  to  keener  activity. 

But  don't  stop  at  deep  breathing.  Turn  on 
the  current  of  your  will  power  and  let  happy 
thoughts  assume  vividness  in  your  mind;  talk 
to  some  one  whose  presence  reassures  you; 
listen  to  cheerful  music;  read  a  Booth  Tar- 
kington  story,  an  Irvin  Cobb  article  or  a  Walt 
Mason  jingle, — anything  to  throw  the  switch 
on  your  train  of  thought  and  send  it  down 
another  track. 

There  are  hundreds  of  things  you  can  do  to 
send  your  thoughts  into  pleasant  channels  if 
you  try.  The  trouble  with  the  chronic  wor- 
rier is  that  he  won't  try.  He  says,  "I'll  try 

105 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
it,  but  it  won't  do  me  any  good."    Of  course 
it  doesn't.     For  he  hasn't  really  tried.     When 
you  start  with  a  negative  attitude  you  are  not 
trying. 

Worry,  like  Memory  and  Will,  is  a  mental 
faculty.  These  faculties  react  somewhat  like 
human  servants.  They  don't  do  a  thing  if 
they  know  you  are  not  expecting  them  to. 

Your  mind  is  a  "maverick," — an  unbroken 
colt.  It  rebels  at  training  at  first,  but  pretty 
soon,  if  you  keep  the  reins  in  your  hand  and 
follow  these  rules,  it  will  be  the  servant  of 
your  will.  You  can  guide  it  wherever  you 
wish.  You  can  guide  it  into  the  habit  of  right 
thinking,  optimistic  thinking,  constructive 
thinking. 

The  man  who  has  mastered  his  thinking 
has  mastered  his  life. 

If  people  only  knew  what  they  are  doing 
when  they  allow  themselves  to  think  they  are 
failures,  when  they  picture  themselves  as 
down  and  out  nobodies! 

If  they  could  only  see  how  these  images  of 
weakness  etch  themselves  into  their  brains, 
usurp  the  reins  and  take  charge  of  their  affairs 
nothing  could  induce  them  to  harbor  them  for 
an  instant.  They  would  drive  them  out  as 
they  would  expel  a  robber  from  their  homes. 

106 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 

We  carefully  lock  the  door  of  our  offices 
and  homes  against  thieves,  but  leave  the 
doors  of  our  minds  open  to  the  thieves  of 
worry  that  rob  us  of  happiness,  health  and 
efficiency. 

No  matter  how  priceless  may  be  the  val- 
uables in  your  office  or  home,  the  loss  of  them 
all  would  be  nothing  compared  to  the  loss  of 
hope,  courage  and  confidence. 

Your  success  depends,  not  on  any  of  the 
material  belongings  you  may  have  locked  up 
in  the  safe,  but  on  the  state  of  your  mind 
from  day  to  day. 

Fear  is  the  worst  enemy  you  have.  It  is 
the  only  enemy  that  can  down  you.  It  can 
only  do  so  if  you  let  it.  It  is  powerless  to 
harm  you  except  as  you  bow  down  to  it  and 
relinquish  yourself  into  its  hands. 

What  would  you  think  of  a  man  who  per- 
sisted in  keeping  his  bitterest  enemy  near  him 
all  the  time?  You  would  say  he  was  a  fool. 

This  is  exactly  what  the  chronic  worrier 
does.  If  Worry  wanders  away  for  a  moment 
Habit  runs  after  her,  brings  her  back  and  the 
worrier  gives  her  his  attention.  As  I  have 
pointed  out  before,  the  thing  that  has  your 
attention  has  the  richest  gift  you  have  to  be- 
stow. 

107 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

It  is  for  this  same  reason  that  I  don't  want 
you  to  worry  over  any  of  your  human  enem- 
ies. Many  people  worry  because  they  have 
been  wronged.  Doubtless  people  have 
wronged  you. 

Everyone  has  been  wronged,  mistreated, 
misjudged,  misunderstood.  Anyone  who  ever 
did  anything  worth  doing  has  been  misunder- 
stood. Anyone  who  ever  mingled  much  with 
others  has  been  hurt  sometimes  in  the  shuffle. 

But  that  is  all  the  more  reason  why  you 
should  not  let  people  hurt  you  any  more. 

When  you  worry  about  the  wrongs  done  to 
you  you  are  laying  at  the  feet  of  those  who 
hurt  you  the  most  precious  gift  you  can  give, 
— your  attention.  Now  if  he  wronged  you 
unintentionally  you  have  no  right  to  judge 
him.  If  he  wronged  you  intentionally  that 
man  certainly  does  not  deserve  these  priceless 
gifts  of  yours, — your  thoughts.  The  only 
way  to  vanquish  an  enemy  is  to  grow  so  big 
you  forget  he  ever  existed. 

If  you  are  inclined  to  be  sensitive  to  what 
people  say  about  you,  to  worry  over  what 
people  may  think  of  you,  there  is  just  one 
way  to  silence  them.  Moreover  it  will  make 
them  admire  you.  That  is  never  to  let  them 
know  you  are  sensitive. 

108 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 

The  "survival  of  the  fittest"  is  an  unwrit- 
ten law  that  has  almost  as  much  power  in 
the  human  world  as  in  the  animal  world,  and 
everyone  knows  what  happens  in  the  animal 
world  when  a  creature  shows  fear. 

Did  you  ever  notice  what  happens  to  the 
dog  that  goes  around  with  his  tail  between  his 
legs?  Every  little  terrier  snaps  at  him.  He 
is  usually  a  rather  nice  dog,  just  as  sensitive 
people  are  often  higher  up,  evolutionally,  than 
those  whose  criticisms  they  fear.  But  he  will 
never  go  far  till  he  schools  himself  to  ignore 
the  carpers. 

There  is  only  one  way  to  ward  off  criticism: 
be  nothing,  say  nothing,  do  nothing. 

Anyone  who  accomplishes  has  mud  spat- 
tered on  him  occasionally  but  he  pays  no  at- 
tention to  it.  If  you  want  to  escape  with  the 
minimum  of  mud  let  people  know  their  mud 
neither  interests  you  nor  harms  you. 

The  world  does  homage  to  the  man  who 
isn't  afraid  of  it.  It  snaps  at  the  one  who  is 
always  on  the  lookout  for  its  opinion. 

Never  worry  over  what  people  are  saying 
about  you  and  they  will  never  say  anything 
very  bad. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  man  who  is  always 
worrying  about  what  the  world  says  of  him 

109 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

will  never  give  it  reason  to  say  anything  very 
good. 

If  you  had  a  big  manufacturing  plant  run 
by  electricity  do  you  think  you  would  leave 
the  power  house,  where  all  the  current  was 
generated,  wide  open  to  thieves  and  vandals? 
Do  you  think  you  would  go  so  far  as  to  en- 
courage them  to  come  in  and  pilfer?  Would 
you  keep  your  most  valuable  servant,  Atten- 
tion, stationed  at  the  door  to  welcome  them 
in  to  destroy? 

You  would  not  think  of  doing  such  a  thing. 
You  would  keep  that  power  house  guarded 
day  and  night,  you  would  let  no  one  into  it 
who  could  harm  the  priceless  machinery,  and 
you  would  employ  in  it  only  the  most  effi- 
cient assistants. 

Your  mind  is  your  power  house, — the  sta- 
tion that  generates  the  current  by  which 
everything  you  do  in  life  must  be  accom- 
plished. Worry,  fear,  anxiety  and  doubt  are 
the  vandals  that  wreck  its  delicate  mechan- 
isms. 

Yet  your  worriers  let  them  plunder  around 
in  there  at  will,  sapping  your  vitality,  destroy- 
ing your  initiative,  demoralizing  your  greatest 
forces. 

110 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 

And  not  this  alone:  These  thieves  turn  the 
current  of  your  power  against  you,  and  burn 
down  your  property. 

Many  diseases  and  most  failures  are  the 
direct  result  of  this  great  power  being  turned 
against  you.  Learn  to  lock  them  out.  Re- 
fuse them  your  attention  and  they  are  help- 
less to  harm  you. 

If  you  have  followed  me  closely  up  to 
this  point  you  now  realize  that  all  worry  is 
merely  a  series  of  unpleasant  mental  pictures; 
that  when  you  sit  in  the  movie  theatre  of  your 
imagination,  gazing  at  those  unpleasant  pic- 
tures over  and  over  again,  you  are  worrying. 

As  I  have  pointed  out,  these  pictures  are 
made  by  the  turning  of  your  attention  on  the 
unhappy  subject.  I  have  shown  you  that  all 
you  need  to  do  to  free  yourself  from  worry 
is  to  turn  your  attention  to  a  happy  subject  in 
your  life. 

To  do  this,  let  the  happy  subject  assume 
greater  vividness  than  the  other  and  then  hold 
it  there.  This  is  the  secret  of  attention.  This 
can  be  done  for  a  few  seconds  at  a  time  by 
anyone  of  average  intelligence. 

And  when  you  have  done  it  for  a  few  sec- 
onds at  a  time  you  can  soon  do  it  for  a  few 
moments  at  a  time.  Soon  you  will  be  able  to 

111 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
sustain  this  happy  mental  attitude  over  a  per- 
iod of  half  an  hour,  then  an  hour  and  grad- 
ually to  whole  days. 

"Be  free  of  worry  for  days  at  a  time?"  you 
ask.  Certainly.  To  be  sure,  Worry  will  come 
near  the  door  of  your  mind  often  at  first,  for 
you  see,  she  has  the  habit  because  you  have 
been  so  good  to  her. 

But  when  you  ignore  her  and  give  your  at- 
tention to  uplifting  thoughts  she  acquires  an- 
other habit, — the  habit  of  tapping  on  your 
door  less  often.  After  a  little  while  she  will 
come  only  occasionally,  and  then  there  will 
come  the  time  when  she  troubles  you  only  at 
wide  intervals. 

By  that  time  you  will  have  mastered  your- 
self so  well  that  your  subconscious  will  turn 
her  away  without  interrupting  you.  You  will 
be  so  completely  the  ruler  of  your  life  that 
you  will  scarcely  be  aware  of  her  presence. 

Start  today.  When  you  fail  don't  be  dis- 
couraged. Try  again.  Remember  the  hap- 
piness of  your  life  depends  on  the  happiness 
of  your  thoughts  and  you  make  your  thoughts 
by  the  placing  of  your  attention. 

You  are  a  free  agent.  You  are  the  captain 
of  your  own  mental  ship.  You  can  pilot  it 
where  you  will.  You  can  think  only  the 

112 


HOW  TO  STOP  WORRYING 
thoughts  that  are  agreeable  to  you.     You  can, 
at  any  moment,  produce  in  consciousness  up- 
lifting, inspiring  thoughts.     By  so  doing  you 
can  build  an  uplifting,  inspiring  life. 

You  are  going  to  start  right  now  to  build 
the  kind  of  future  you  want.  You  are  going 
to  set  your  great  forces  to  working  for  you 
instead  of  against  you.  You  are  going  to  de- 
vote your  mind  to  drawing  the  kind  of  plans 
you  want  to  come  true  instead  of  the  ones  you 
dread.  You  are  going  to  right  about  face  and 
start  up  the  road  to  Success  regardless  of  what 
anybody  thinks  or  says.  You  are  going  to 
apply  these  simple,  easy  rules  and  remake 
your  existence  into  a  happy,  healthful,  joyous 
life. 

Let  me  give  you  my  parting  secret, — the 
secret  which,  as  we  used  to  say  as  children 
is  "just  between  you  and  me."  It  is  this: 
Don't  explain  your  plans,  don't  announce 
your  new  regime  to  anyone.  Soon  they  will 
be  wanting  to  know  what  has  made  the  beau- 
tiful change  in  you.  Then  will  be  the  time 
to  tell  them.  Pass  this  lesson  on  to  them  so 
it  can  help  them  as  it  has  already  helped  thou- 
sands of  men  and  women. 


113 


CHAPTER  III 
HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 

INVICTUS 
Out  of  the  night  that  covers  me, 

Black  as  the  pit  from  pole  to  pole, 
I  thank  whatever  gods  there  be 

For  my  unconquerable  soul. 

In  the  fell  clutch  of  circumstance 

I  have  not  winced  nor  cried  aloud; 
Under  the  bludgeoning  of  chance 

My  head  is  bloody,  but  unbowed. 

Beyond  this  vale  of  wrath  and  tears 

Looms  but  the  horror  of  the  shade; 
And  yet  the  menace  of  the  years 

Finds  and  shall  find  me,  unafraid. 

It  matters  not  how  straight  the  gate, 

How  charged  with  punishments  the  scroll, 

I  am  the  master  of  my  fate; 
I  am  the  captain  of  my  soul. 

WILLIAM  HENLEY. 

AVE  you  ever  gone  into  a  situation 
with  all  the  materials  for  winning 
and  lost  just  because  you  lacked 
self-confidence?  Have  you  been 
tortured  by  the  chagrin  of  knowing  that  due 
to  your  self -consciousness  you  cut  a  sorry  fig- 
ure before  someone  whom  you  especially 

114 


HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 

wished  to  impress?  Have  you  stayed  awake 
nights  imagining  how  much  more  creditably 
you  could  acquit  yourself  if  you  could  only 
try  it  over  again?  Have  you  made  plans  for 
retrieving  your  lost  ground  with  that  person 
and  invented  ways  and  means  of  meeting  him 
again  to  show  him  your  strong,  true  self? 

These  things  have  happened  to  billions  of 
people.  Countless  men  and  women  of  brilliant 
qualities  suffer  humiliation,  despair  and  fail- 
ure merely  for  the  lack  of  self-confidence, 
while  others  of  less  ability  walk  off  with  the 
world's  prizes  because  they  possess  this  qual- 
ity. High  places  are  full  of  mediocre  Individ- 
uals  who  got  there  almost  solely  on  their  self- 
confidence.  Many  a  superior  soul  hasjjraxsL 
itated  to  a  lowly  station  and  been  compelled 
to  stay  there  solely  because  he  lacked  it. 

Perhaps  some  day  the  fairy  tale  we  were 
taught  at  school,  to  the  effect  that  "merit 
always  wins"  may  come  true,  but  nothing 
could  be  further  from  the  truth  today.  Today 
the  world  is  organized  of  the  self-confident, 
by  the  self-confident  and  for  the  self-confident. 
The  standard  by  which  people  are  measured 
is  not  "How  much  pure  gold  is  there  in  you?", 
but  "How  much  brass  have  you  mixed  with 
it?" 

115 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

To  be  sure,  you  must  have  some  gold 
in  you.  If  you  haven't,  the  acid  tests  of  our 
competitive  society  will  soon  show  it  and  you 
will  be  thrown  out  on  the  dump. 

But  gold  alone  won't  do.  Everywhere  the 
demand  is  for  the  individuals  who  have  not 
only  a  good  stock  of  goods,  but  whose  "front 
windows"  show  off  to  advantage.  You  are 
all  acquainted  with  this  in  the  business  and 
professional  world. 

But  it  is  getting  to  be  true  also  in  the  realm 
of  romance.  The  girl  who  was  modest,  self- 
depreciatory, — the  kind  they  said  had  "a  heart 
of  gold" — used  to  be  the  kind  men  wanted  to 
marry. 

But  the  modern  Lothario  knows  that  kind 
of  girl  won't  make  the  showing  he  needs.  So 
he  marries  the  girl  with  snap  and  self-con- 
fidence. 

And  you  can't  blame  him.  A  man's  wife 
must  be  a  helpmate  today  just  as  always.  She 
must  be  an  asset.  She  must,  just  as  always, 
meet  his  friends,  associates  and  superiors  with 
the  manner  betokening  his  success.  Self- 
depreciatory,  self-conscious  people  can't  do 
this.  Less  confidence  is  had  in  you  the  min- 
ute you  are  known  to  be  allied  with  timid  peo- 

pie. 

116 


HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 

In  the  good  old  days  when  a  man's  wife  was 
considered  somewhat  as  a  bit  of  his  personal 
property  that  modest,  shrinking  manner  was 
fine.  Naturally,  one  didn't  expect  anything 
else  of  one's  furniture. 

But  a  change  has  come  over  the  times.  To- 
day a  wife  is  known  to  be  a  man's  partner  and 
timid  partners  are  liabilities. 

Not  only  from  this  material  standpoint  is 
the  self-confidence  of  women  being  taken  into 
consideration,  but  it  is  being  recognized  that 
from  the  viewpoint  of  woman's  highest  mis- 
sion,— motherhood, — it  is  vital. 

It  is  a  well  known  psychological  law  that 
the  mental  attitudes  of  children  are  largely  the 
result  of  parental  training.  A  self-conscious, 
timid  mother  trains  self -consciousness  and  tim- 
idity into  her  children,  and  no  father  in  the 
world  wants  his  children  to  be  that. 

So  from  money  to  motherhood  it  pays  to 
be  self-confident.  Not  conceited,  not  vain,  not 
arrogant,  but  filled  with  the  consciousness  of 
strength. 

I  am  always  being  asked  in  my  lectures  how 
I  differentiate  between  conceit  and  self-con- 
fidence. This  is  the  difference:  The  con- 
ceited man  tries  to  make  himself  seem  larger 
by  making  others  seem  smaller;  the  self-con- 

117 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
fident  man  expresses  faith  in  his  own  ability  to 
meet  any  situation  while  giving  everyone  else 
his  chance.  It  is  his  belief  in  his  power  to  win 
in  the  open  rather  than  any  attempt  to  take 
advantage,  which  characterizes  the  self-confi- 
dent man.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  I  refer  to 
self-confidence  in  this  lesson. 

The  "I-am-the-captain-of-my-soul"  attitude, 
the  "unbowed,"  "unafraid,"  "master-of-my- 
fate"  conviction  is  what  I  mean  by  self-confi- 
dence. Because  it  is  what  you  mean  also,  and 
what  every  human  being  craves,  the  world 
has,  for  this  one  poem,  placed  the  name  of 
William  Henley  among  the  immortals. 

Before  I  tell  you  how  to  become  self-confi- 
dent perhaps  you  would  like  to  know  what 
causes  self-consciousness.  It  is  suggestion. 
Regardless  of  what  form  self-consciousness 
takes  or  on  what  subject  the  victim  is  most 
sensitive,  suggestion  is  always  the  cause. 

I  once  heard  William  James  say,  "No  crea- 
ture is  born  timid.  Look  at  the  naturalness 
of  all  animals.  Human  beings  are  made  timid 
by  suggestions  from  external  sources, — peo- 
ple or  things.  These  suggestions  literally  make 
the  individual  'conscious  of  self  and  there  his 
troubles  begin. 

Spontaneity,    one    of    the  most  attractive 
118 


HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 

qualities,  is  impossible  to  the  man  who  is  con- 
scious of  himself.  His  mind  is  always  turned 
inward  upon  himself  instead  of  upon  the 
thing  he  is  trying  to  do.  Consequently  he 
never  does  it  effectively." 

Suggestions  which  make  people  self-con- 
scious come  through  various  channels.  The 
extent  to  which  any  suggestion  affects  us  is 
determined  by  three  elements,  —  our  respect 
for  the  person  or  thing  making  the  suggestion, 
the  clearness  with  which  the  suggestion  is 
made,  and  the  degree  of  our  own  sensitiveness. 

The  latter  element  is  most  important.  The 
very  "tough-skinned"  are  almost  impervious  to 
suggestion,  while  the  extremely  sensitive  in- 
dividual registers  the  merest  suggestion.  These 
naturally  sensitive  men  and  women  are  doubt- 
less the  most  wretched  of  beings.  To  them 
the  world  is  a  hostile  place  bristling  with  in- 
imical, or  at  best,  unpleasant  forces.  They  are 
constantly  being  wounded,  embarrassed,  hu- 
miliated. 

Many  of  my  students  have  told  me  they 
would  rather  have  any  affliction  in  the  world 
than  their  self -consciousness. 

They  came  nearer  to  the  truth  than  they 
knew.  Self-consciousness  is  an  affliction 
amounting  almost  to  a  mental  ailment.  It  is 

119 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

a  fixed,  predominant  mental  attitude  which, 
after  a  few  years,  becomes  embedded  in  the 
subconscious. 

Let  us  look  at  two  of  your  young  men 
friends, — both  well  born,  well  educated,  well 
in  body. 

One  walks  down  the  street  with  his  chest 
up,  his  shoulders  back,  his  head  high.  He 
walks  as  if  he  were  going  somewhere,  as  if 
he  knew  where  it  was  and  what  he  was  go- 
ing to  do  when  he  got  there.  He  sees  you 
coming  and  has  a  real  smile  at  the  bursting 
point  by  the  time  you  get  there.  He  speaks 
to  you  dynamically,  cordially,  and  if  he  is  an 
old  friend  and  has  the  time  he  will  shake 
hands. 

He  probably  won't  slap  you  on  the  back. 
Jarring  your  friends'  lungs  out  of  place  is  not 
as  popular  as  it  used  to  be. 

When  he  shakes  your  hand  you  will  notice 
something.  He  won't  crush  the  bones, — that 
isn't  good  form  any  more,  either, — but  you 
will  know  something  has  hold  of  you.  He 
does  it  as  though  he  liked  you.  His  eye  has  a 
sparkle  in  it,  his  voice  has  a  ring  to  it  that 
seems  alive. 

Alive,  that's  it.  The  self-confident  man  or 
woman  simply  seems  more  alive.  That's  why 

120 


HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 

you  like  to  trust  them  to  do  things.  You  be- 
lieve they  can  meet  emergencies,  you  have 
faith  in  their  powers.  And  whether  it  is  a 
heart  or  a  job  you  have  to  offer,  you  select 
this  kind  of  chap  to  receive  it. 

What  about  the  other  young  man?  Re- 
member, he  has  just  as  much  of  every  ma- 
terial thing  as  the  former, — money,  clothes, 
education,  looks. 

But  he  walks  with  his  chest  down,  his  head 
slanted  a  little  and  a  slightly  ashamed  look  in 
his  eye. 

Has  he  done  anything  to  be  ashamed  of? 
No.  He  is  a  fine,  clean,  honest  young  chap 
with  nothing  at  all  against  him.  But  he  walks 
and  stands  and  shakes  hands  as  though  he 
owed  the  world  an  apology. 

Now  about  this  time  something  has  begun 
to  happen  in  your  mind.  Your  mental  pro- 
cesses have  operated  at  such  lightning-like 
speed  you  are  not  conscious  of  each  step,  but 
this  is  what  happened:  You  saw  apology 
written  all  over  that  young  man;  you  would 
like  to  like  him,  you  would  like  to  give  him 
that  job,  but  he  seems  to  be  afraid  of  himself. 
You  can't  see  why  he  should  be,  but,  your 
mind  argues,  "He  knows  himself  better  than 
I,  and  he  ought  to  know." 

121 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

Also,  you  know  that  whether  he  is  weak  or 
not,  as  long  as  he  acts  weak  he  will  never  get 
a  hearing. 

You  know  he  wouldn't  do  for  a  job  requir- 
ing initiative  for  initiative  takes  a  little  daring. 

You  would  dislike  to  have  your  daughter 
marry  him  because  you  have  a  mental  pic- 
ture of  him  getting  the  worst  of  it  from  every- 
one. If  you  are  the  daughter  yourself  you 
wouldn't  want  him  for  a  husband  unless  you 
feel  you  have  enough  self-confidence  for  two. 

The  fact  of  it  is  that  the  world  does  take 
us  at  our  own  valuation.  It  is  too  busy  with 
its  own  affairs  to  take  the  trouble  to  investi- 
gate us.  It  prefers  to  accept  us  at  face  value, 
at  least  until  events  shall  prove  the  contrary. 

So  the  young  man  with  the  self-confident 
manner  gets  the  chances.  Enough  chances  are 
all  that  any  of  us  need.  The  man  who  gets 
them  wins.  The  one  who  doesn't  get  them, 
no  matter  how  great  his  natural  abilities,  falls 
behind. 

Now  what  was  it  that  made  you  distrust 
the  second  young  man?  It  was  his  poor  ad- 
vertisement of  himself. 

You  are  your  own  advertisement.  Every- 
thing about  you  is  advertising  you  all  the 
time, — your  facial  expression,  your  walk, 

122 


HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 
your  posture,  the  way  your  hands  act,  the 
way  your  head  sits  on  your  shoulders,  the 
direction  your  chin  points,  the  tones  of  your 
voice,  the  grip  of  your  hands,  the  way  your 
feet  hit  the  ground,  etc. 

Every  person  is  telling  what  he  thinks  of 
himself  every  waking  moment.  It  is  impos- 
sible for  him  to  disguise  it.  He  may  camou- 
flage one  or  two  elements, — such  as  the  tones 
of  his  voice  or  the  shake  of  his  hand, — but  he 
cannot  camouflage  them  all  for  there  are  too 
many. 

Every  muscle  in  the  human  body  expresses 
states  of  mind.  Every  thought,  however  tran- 
sient, has  its  corresponding  muscular  mechan- 
ism which  reacts  instantly  and  automatically 
whenever  that  thought  flits  through  con- 
sciousness. 

In  each  individual  there  are  millions  of  these 
outlets.  Each  one  is  a  little  headgate  in  the 
intricate  system,  and  the  instant  it  is  un- 
guarded, out  flows  the  betraying  expression. 
A  clever  man  may  become  adept  at  guarding 
the  main  gates,  but  they  are  always  being  off- 
set by  the  opposite  testimony  from  the  little 
ones. 

In  short,  you  are  advertising  your  own  es- 
timate of  yourself  every  waking  moment,  in 

123 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

signs  so  glaring  that  every  friend  knows  what 
you  really  think  of  yourself.  Strangers  who 
pass  you  on  the  street  know  whether  or  not 
you  believe  in  yourself. 

The  timid  person  is  full  of  fear.  He  may 
have  unlimited  moral  courage  and  often  has, 
but  he  is  afraid  of  himself.  This  settles  into 
a  fixed  attitude, — the  attitude  that  he  is  un- 
equal to  the  occasion;  that  he  is  going  to  ac- 
quit himself  poorly;  that  he  is  beaten  before 
he  starts.  With  this  thought  uppermost  it  is 
impossible  to  win.  As  long  as  it  forms  the 
background  of  his  thoughts  it  will  influence 
every  act  of  his  life. 

An  anonymous  author  has  put  it  this  way: 
"If  you  think  you're  outclassed  you  are. 

You've  got  to  think  high  to  rise. 
You've  got  to  believe  in  yourself 

Before  you  can  ever  win  a  prize. 
Life's  laurels  don't  always  go 

To  the  stronger  or  swifter  man; 
But  soon  or  late  the  man  who  wins 
Is  the  fellow  who  thinks  he  can." 
No  power  on  earth  can  save  you  from  de- 
feat if  you  expect  it.     Because  the  man  who 
thinks  defeat  acts  defeat.    The  man  who  acts 
defeated  is  defeated  before  he  starts. 

But  he  is  not  defeated  by  external  things  as 
he  imagines.  He  is  defeated  by  himself. 

124 


HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 

The  self-conscious  person  is  defeated  by  his 
self-consciousness.  Everyone  is  aware  of  it. 
Some  pity  him,  some  despise  him,  but  none 
dares  trust  him  with  responsibility.  Respon- 
sibility and  self-fear  can't  work  together.  So 
all  the  good  places  go  to  those  who  have  the 
self-faith  attitude. 

Ex-President  Eliot  of  Harvard  said:  "There 
is  no  measuring  the  extent  to  which  other 
peoples'  opinions  of  us  affect  our  lives.  The 
impressions  others  have  of  us  determine,  to  a 
great  extent,  the  opportunities  offered  to  us, 
and  these,  in  turn,  determine  the  heights  we 
achieve." 

Did  you  ever  stop  to  think  how  everything 
you  want  out  of  life  is  within  the  hands  of 
other  people  to  give  you  or  withhold  from 
you? 

To  be  sure,  no  one  person  or  small  group 
of  persons  can  turn  the  tide  of  your  life  per- 
manently, but  if  we  could  bring  together  all 
the  people  with  whom  a  man  came  in  contact 
from  the  cradle  to  the  grave  we  would  find 
that  his  life  had  been  a  failure  or  a  success 
according  to  whether  these  people  had  opened 
or  closed  the  avenues  of  opportunity  to  him. 

If  we  could  go  a  step  further  and  interview 
every  person  who  had  used  his  influence  for  or 

125 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

against  that  man  each  would  tell  us  he  acted 
according  to  the  impression  he  had  of  the 
man. 

Now  the  impression  you  make  on  others  is 
due  almost  solely  to  the  impression  you  have 
of  yourself.  If  you  are  afraid  of  yourself 
others  are  afraid  of  you;  if  you  trust  yourself 
others  trust  you.  Confidence  begets  confi- 
dence. 

Having  seen  the  contrast  between  the  self- 
confident  and  the  self-conscious,  let  us  look 
into  the  law  of  suggestion  whose  workings 
bring  it  about.  That  law  is  this:  You  tend 
to  follow  every  suggestion  made  to  you  un- 
less inhibited  by  a  stronger  suggestion  in  an- 
other direction. 

It  is  not  necessary  here  to  go  into  the  rami- 
fications of  suggestion, — that  most  powerful 
combination  of  forces  in  our  lives, — except  to 
point  out  that  every  act  is,  directly  or  indi- 
rectly, the  result  of  a  suggestion  from  some- 
thing or  somebody. 

Everything  from  love-making  to  advertis- 
ing is  based  on  the  law  of  suggestion.  The 
most  important  factor,  as  before  stated,  is  the 
sensitiveness  or  suggestibility  of  the  individ- 
ual. Close  to  this  is  the  element  of  respect  f o 
the  person  or  thing  making  the  suggestion. 

126 


HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 

Right  here  comes  one  of  the  most  deplor- 
able facts  concerning  the  big  question  of  self- 
confidence:  Most  self-conscious  people  are 
made  so  by  their  parents  or  others  with  whom 
they  grow  up. 

The  child  is  taught  that  he  is  "too  little"  or 
"too  young"  to  do  this  or  that.  He  is  taught 
fear  of  the  dark,  fear  of  policemen,  fear  of  his 
playmates,  fear  of  his  parents,  and  hundreds 
of  other  things. 

Rollin  Wallingford,  the  noted  Personality 
Specialist  and  Child  Psychologist,  says,  "If 
you  wish  your  child  to  be  thoroughly  self-con- 
fident see  to  it  that  you  suggest  to  him  only 
those  things  which  you  wish  to  see  come  true 
in  his  life." 

With  no  realization  of  the  wrong  they  are 
doing,  parents  who  feel  unequal  to  the  task  of 
disciplining  their  children  call  to  their  aid  the 
worst  enemy  of  every  creature, — the  instinct 
of  fear.  The  extent  to  which  this  meets  with 
success  depends,  as  before  stated,  on  the  sen- 
sitiveness of  the  individual  child  and  the 
finesse  with  which  the  suggestions  are  made. 
The  source  from  which  the  suggestions  come 
is  not  questioned. 

As  we  grow  older  we  are  saved  from  many 
dangerous  suggestions  by  our  distrust  of  the 

127 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

person  making  the  suggestion.  Even  the  child 
learns  at  an  early  age  the  groundlessness  of 
some  of  these  parental  bugaboos  and  there- 
after takes  everything  his  parents  tell  him  with 
a  "grain  of  salt." 

But  the  self-confidence  of  the  sensitive  child 
is  often  hopelessly  ruined  by  this  time.  He 
has  been  told  so  many  times  "he  mustn't  at- 
tempt what  the  others  do/'  "he  might  fail 
and  then  what  would  people  say/'  "he  hasn't 
the  ability"  to  do  this  or  that,  "children  are  to 
be  seen,  not  heard/'  "those  people  are  looking 
at  you/'  etc.,  till  he  feels  that  all  eyes  are 
glued  on  him,  that  he  is  the  center  of  the  uni- 
verse. 

The  damage  is  soon  done.  These  sugges- 
tions, like  all  early  suggestions,  sink  deep  into 
the  subconscious  and  there  form  the  main- 
spring of  conduct  for  all  later  life. 

Parents  are  committing  crimes  when  they 
suggest  weakness,  incapacity  and  self-distrust 
to  their  children. 

All  these  mistakes  are  made  with  the  best 
motives  in  the  world,  but  natural  law  is  nat- 
ural law  and  operates  without  regard  to  "good 
intentions." 

Parents  bring  up  their  children  under  the 
pall  of  self-fear,  and  then  wonder  why  they 

128 


HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 

do  not  blossom  out  self-confident  and  self- 
reliant  at  twenty  or  so. 

Last  year  the  parents  of  a  seventeen-year- 
old  boy  brought  their  son  to  us  for  a  personal 
analysis. 

"We  want  you/'  they  said,  "to  give  Wil- 
liam your  psychological  and  other  tests  and 
tell  us  why  it  is  that  he  doesn't  get  on  better 
in  high  school. 

He  is  all  right  as  far  as  we  can  see, — per- 
fectly healthy,  lots  better  looking  than  the 
rest  of  those  young  fellows,  if  we  do  say  it; 
has  had  the  very  best  home  training,  and  has 
no  bad  habits  whatever.  But  he  lets  the  rest 
of  them  go  clear  ahead  of  him;  he  always 
takes  a  back  seat;  he  won't  put  himself  for- 
ward as  a  strapping  boy  like  that  ought  to; 
just  won't  take  part  in  anything.  Why  they 
had  some  oratorical  contests  last  month  and 
the  boy  that  got  first  prize  doesn't  compare 
with  William.  But  do  you  think  William 
would  enter?  Not  for  anything.  We  begged 
him  to,  and  promised  a  gold  watch  if  he 
would,  but  it  didn't  do  any  good.  Now  we 
want  to  know  what  ails  him." 

Self-consciousness  was  all  that  ailed  Wil- 
liam. He  passed  every  test  ahead  of  his  years. 

129 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

He  was  far  above  the  average  iji  physique, 
health,  general  points  and  personality. 

But  when  it  came  to  the  question,  "When 
you  were  young  were  you  encouraged  by  your 
parents  or  pushed  into  the  background?"  He 
wrote:  "Pushed  into  the  background.  Dis- 
suaded by  father  and  mother  from  almost 
everything  I  wanted  to  do." 

Further  examination  revealed  that  his  par- 
ents had  never  permitted  him  to  engage  in 
competitive  sports  as  a  little  boy. 

Out  of  several  thousands  of  private  students 
more  than  half  have  come  to  us  to  be  cured 
of  self-consciousness,  and  of  these  over  sev- 
enty per  cent  have  answered  that  they  were 
"pushed  into  the  background"  as  children. 

The  picture  each  one  of  them  carried  of 
himself  in  his  mind  was  that  of  a  person  un- 
equal to  emergencies,  one  certain  to  go  down 
before  opposition.  Staying  in  the  rear  and 
giving  front  places  to  others  had  become  a 
habit. 

Though  each  case  differs  somewhat  accord- 
ing to  the  personal  experiences  of  the  individ- 
ual, every  person  can  greatly  increase  his  self- 
confidence  by  following  the  rules  laid  down 
in  this  lesson. 

The  first  step  is  to  realize  that  your  self-con* 
130 


HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 

sciousness  is  an  unnatural  condition;  that  you 
were  not  born  self-conscious,  but  have  been 
made  so  by  a  series  of  false  suggestions.  In 
other  words,  the  law  of  suggestion  has  been 
used  against  you. 

Your  problem  henceforth  is  to  reverse  that 
law  and  make  it  work  for  you. 

Here  are  the  three  stages  by  which  the  law 
of  suggestion  operates: 

Suggestion 

Visualization 

Action 

The  suggestion  that  you  were  unequal  to  the 
situation  brought  a  mental  picture  of  yourself 
to  fit  it, — a  visualization  of  yourself  as  weaker 
than  the  others  in  that  situation. 

Every  thought  tends  to  express  itself  in  ac- 
tion. Immediately  this  thought  or  mental  pic- 
ture of  weakness  brings  forth  your  actions  in 
accordance  with  it.  These  actions  of  yours 
betray  the  state  of  your  mind  to  others  and 
they,  taking  you  at  your  own  valuation,  ex- 
pect you  thereafter  to  act  self-consciously. 

They  show  that  they  expect  you  to  act  this 
way.  This  suggestion  from  them  starts  the 
vicious  circle  all  over  again. 

You  do  not  consciously  figure  all  this  out. 
You  are  merely  aware  that  you  have  acted  in 

131 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
a  way  that  did  not  do  you  justice.  You  know 
you  didn't  express  yourself  well,  didn't  make 
a  good  impression.  You  are  sure  others  are 
measuring  you  accordingly  and  expect  you  to 
play  the  same  role  next  time. 

They  show  this  expectation  in  various  sub- 
tle ways.  The  task  of  overthrowing  their  pre- 
conceived impressions  now  seems  so  great  that 
you  do  not  feel  equal  to  it  and  fall  into  the  re- 
tiring, self-depreciatory  attitude  permanently. 

To  pull  yourself  out  of  it,  reverse  the  law. 
It  is  easier  than  you  think.  You  have  two  big 
advantages.  First,  you  have  your  real  nature 
on  your  side  when  you  start  after  self-confi- 
dence, for  self-confidence  is  natural  to  all  liv- 
ing creatures. 

Second,  you  have  this  advantage:  That 
there  is  one  person  to  whose  suggestions  you 
are  more  susceptible  than  those  of  anyone 
else.  That  person  is  yourself.  Every  sugges- 
tion you  give  yourself  affects  you  more  surely 
and  swiftly  than  those  from  any  other  source. 

Therefore,  to  reverse  the  law,  suggest  to 
yourself  that  you  are  self-confident.  This  is 
true.  You  are  by  nature.  You  were  created 
that  way.  But  you  have  been  deceived  into 
acting  otherwise.  Look  back  on  your  experi- 
ences and  see  how  unreal,  unnatural  and  false 

132 


HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 

to  your  true  self  you  always  felt  when  you 
were  acting  self-consciously.  Recall  how  self- 
confidently  you  perform  all  acts  when  abso- 
lutely alone.  This  is  the  ultimate  proof  that 
man  was  born  self-confident.  Only  when  he 
feels  the  presence  of  others  does  anyone  feel 
awkward  and  embarrassed. 

You  learned  in  the  previous  lesson  on 
"Worry"  that  you  could  change  the  state  of 
your  mind  at  any  moment  by  changing  your 
attention. 

Transfer  your  attention  for  a  moment  from 
the  idea  of  self-consciousness  to  the  idea  of 
self-confidence.  Hold  that  idea  for  one  in- 
stant by  your  watch,  and  note  what  happens 
to  you. 

I  want  you  to  do  this  one  second  the  first 
time,  two  seconds  the  second  time,  three  sec- 
onds the  third  time  and  so  on  many  times  to- 
day until  you  get  on  "speaking  terms"  once 
more  with  your  real  self. 

Tomorrow  decide  what  you  most  want  to 
accomplish,  what  you  wish  to  become.  Then, 
in  the  silence  of  your  own  mind,  say  to  your- 
self, "I  shall  accomplish  that.  I  shall  make 
this  come  true."  When  a  doubt  comes  creep- 
ing into  your  mind  don't  let  it  disturb  you. 

Use  the  law  of  attention  which  you  learned  in 

133 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

the  previous  lesson,  to  turn  it  away,  and  go  on 
with  your  affirmations. 

I  want  you  to  be  a  victor  in  life,  and  you 
shall  be  if  you  will  follow  the  instructions  I 
give  you. 

But  you  must  get  away  from  the  ragpick- 
er's vision  you  have  been  holding  of  yourself. 
You  are  not  a  worm,  a  crawling  thing.  You 
are  a  human  being,  created  to  stand  erect  and 
look  the  world  in  the  face.  Start  today  to  lift 
your  chest  and  do  it. 

If  you  want  people  to  believe  in  you  you 
must  believe  in  yourself.  You  must  express 
that  belief  by  your  voice,  your  walk,  your 
handshake,  your  bodily  posture,  by  keeping 
your  chin  out  and  your  head  high.  You  must 
put  vim,  energy,  "go"  into  all  your  actions, 
for  these  will  convince  others  of  your  ability 
and  they  will  give  you  opportunities.  Keep- 
ing up  the  same  actions  will  enable  you  to 
make  good  on  those  opportunities. 

The  victor,  the  winner  in  life's  battles, 
wears  an  air  of  confidence,  assurance  and  su- 
periority. His  bearing  is  one  of  force,  his  very 
presence  imparts  a  sense  of  power.  You  spot 
him  as  the  leader,  you  would  pin  your  faith 
to  him  in  a  contest.  The  vanquished  wears 

134 


HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 

the  air  of  defeat,  he  lacks  assurance,  aggres- 
siveness. Which  face  do  you  want  to  wear? 

There  is  but  one  answer.  You  wish  to  wear 
the  face  of  the  victor.  Well,  it  is  for  you  to 
acquire.  Today  I  ask  you  to  put  it  on  whether 
you  feel  equal  to  it  or  not,  somewhat  as  the 
masquerader  dons  his  for  the  ball,  but  with 
this  big  difference:  You  put  yours  on  with 
the  determination  not  to  take  it  off;  to  keep 
it  there  till  its  shining  visage  shall  become 
your  own. 

Every  time  you  think  of  yourself  think  of 
your  highest  ideal  of  yourself, — strong,  re- 
sourceful, influential,  successful  in  just  the 
work  you  want  to  do. 

If  this  sounds  superficial  to  you  remem- 
ber what  Munsterberg  said  to  the  Harvard  stu- 
dents in  his  class  in  Psychology:  "Young 
men,  whatever  you  wish  to  become  begin 
today,  this  very  hour,  to  live  that  ideal.  Act 
it,  think  it,  talk  it,  visualize  yourself  as  that 
and  that  only.  Never  let  a  picture  of  your- 
self as  anything  else  stay  in  your  mind. 

"If  you  wish  to  become  a  great  lawyer  start 
this  moment  to  think  of  yourself  as  already  a 
great  lawyer.  Make  every  action  one  befit- 
ting a  great  lawyer.  Make  every  tone  of  your 
voice,  every  gesture,  every  posture,  every 

135 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
statement  you  utter,  worthy  of  a  great  lawyer. 
Refuse  to  admit  that  you  are  only  a  student 
perhaps  earning  your  way  through  this  great 
institution.  See  this  institution  rather  as  the 
alma  mater  which  gave  this  great  lawyer  to 
the  world.  In  this  way  you  can  achieve  the 
impossible." 

x  If  you  fail  to  see  the  necessity  for  this,  re- 
mind yourself  that  the  actor  who  grips  you  by 
the  realism  of  his  art  has  achieved  it  only  after 
long  rehearsals  in  private. 

Your  life  is  like  that.  You  have  played  the 
self-conscious  role  because  you  saw  a  mental 
picture  of  yourself  as  a  self-conscious  individ- 
ual. You  can  reverse  it  and  hereafter  play  a 
self-confident,  victorious  one  by  reversing  the 
picture  inside  your  mind. 

Under  no  circumstances  allow  yourself  to 
think  of  yourself  as  a  weakling  or  a  failure. 
Never  make  derogatory  remarks  of  yourself 
any  more  than  you  would  make  them  of  oth- 
ers. 

Don't  criticize  yourself  to  others;  don't 
tell  your  faults;  don't  depreciate  yourself. 
Every  time  you  do  these  things  you  are  tend- 
ing to  fix  upon  yourself  the  weaknesses  of 
which  you  accuse  yourself;  you  tend  to  be- 
come what  you  say  of  yourself.  When  people 

136 


HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 
give  you  compliments  or  praise,  don't  apolo- 
gize, or  blush.     Accept  them. 

If  you  think  they  are  more  than  you  de- 
serve, determine  to  catch  up.  Determine  to 
become  worthy. 

Take  it  for  granted  that  you  have  the  self- 
confidence  and  enthusiasm  to  do  what  you 
want  to  do,  and  soon  you  will  find  yourself  in 
possession  of  these  qualities  when  the  need 
arises.  They  are  there,  inherent  in  you,  but 
they  will  never  come  to  the  surface  unless  you 
expect  them  to. 

Train  your  mind  deliberately,  day  by  day, 
to  demand  of  these  qualities  that  they  come  to 
the  top.  Expect  them  to  rise  to  the  surface. 
Put  yourself  into  situations  where  you  must 
have  them.  Then  you  will  see  them  develop 
over  night  and  come  to  your  rescue. 

The  trouble  with  most  of  us  is  that  we  save 
ourselves  from  emergencies,  we  avoid  crucial 
situations,  we  sidestep  responsibility,  and  thus 
keep  submerged  the  greatest  powers  we  have. 

Nobody  ever  learned  to  swim  on  dry  land. 
You  have  got  to  plunge  in  order  to  find  your 
powers. 

Nature  comes  to  the  aid  of  him  who  needs 
her,  trusts  her  and  throws  himself  on  her 
mercy.  She  has  no  use  for  cowards.  She 

137 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

gives  all  her  prizes  to  those  who  plunge  in  and 
try, — to  those  who  dare. 

History  is  full  of  the  proof  of  these  things. 
Everyone  knows  that  the  Spanish  Armada, 
which  Philip  II  fitted  out  to  conquer  England, 
was  a  miserable  failure,  not  because  it  lacked 
material  strength  but  because  its  commander 
had  no  confidence  in  his  ability  to  win. 

This  commander  was  the  Duke  of  Medina 
Sidonia.  He  wrote  the  king,  in  answer  to  his 
appointment,  saying  he  knew  he  would  be 
beaten;  that  he  knew  nothing  of  naval  mat- 
ters; that  he  knew  none  of  the  officers  who 
were  to  serve  under  him. 

He  concluded  by  saying  that  he  was  always 
seasick  on  the  ocean  and  that  if  the  king  in- 
sisted upon  sending  him  at  the  head  of  this 
expedition  it  would  surely  fail. 

Philip  did  insist,  in  the  false  belief  that  the 
physical  strength  of  his  fleet  could  offset  the 
fear  in  its  leader.  He  manned  130  ships  with 
more  than  30,000  men,  and  over  2500  guns. 

The  expedition  was  the  marvel  of  the  times. 
The  English  fleet  didn't  compare  with  it  in 
equipment,  ships  or  men,  but  the  English 
fleet  won  because  it  was  commanded  by  Lord 
Howard,  who  believed  in  himself. 

Faith  in  yourself  is  the  supremest  factor  in 
138 


HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 
your  life.  It  will  attract  people  to  you ;  it  will 
influence  others  favorably;  it  will  draw  and 
command  the  affection,  confidence  and  ad- 
miration of  the  world.  It  is  a  force  before 
which  the  world  bows  and  in  return  for  which 
it  bestows  its  choicest  gifts. 

Not  only  does  this  faith  in  yourself  impress 
others  and  powerfully  influence  them  in  your 
behalf,  but  it  strengthens  and  develops  you. 
It  brings  out  the  best  in  you. 

Fear  of  yourself  crushes,  deadens,  de- 
presses. 

Self-confidence  is  a  stimulant.  Self-fear  is 
a  deadly  narcotic.  You  are  injecting  one  or 
the  other  of  these  into  your  consciousness 
every  waking  moment. 

Get  every  doubt  about  your  ability  out  of 
your  system.  You  are  not  a  victim  of  cir- 
cumstance except  as  you  think  so.  When 
you  think  you  are,  your  own  fear  thought  is 
making  the  circumstances. 

People  who  go  to  the  top  do  not  stand 
around  waiting  to  see  what  is  going  to  hap- 
pen. They  make  it  happen.  They  have  a 
conviction  of  their  own  ability. 

Look  at  any  famous  man  or  woman  and 
you  will  find  every  one  of  them  believes  in 

139 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

himself.  Every  one  of  them  has  confidence 
in  himself,  in  his  power  to  do. 

Once  a  colonel  came  to  Napoleon  just  be- 
fore a  battle.  "Are  we  going  to  win?"  asked 
Napoleon.  "We  will  if  circumstances  per- 
mit," answered  the  colonel.  "Circumstances!" 
exclaimed  Napoleon,  "I  make  circumstances!" 

The  world  might  well  be  divided  into  two 
classes, — those  who  let  their  lives  be  made  by 
circumstances  and  those  who  make  their  own 
circumstances. 

The  first  step  in  the  mastery  of  your  own 
life  is  taken  when  you  have  fully  decided  what 
you  wish  to  accomplish. 

Then  picture  yourself  as  you  will  talk,  act, 
dress,  walk  and  conduct  yourself  generally 
when  you  have  accomplished  it. 

This  is  visualization,  the  second  great  step 
in  the  law  of  self-confidence.  Visualization 
deals  with  action,  it  makes  you  the  leading 
character  in  your  own  drama.  It  sets  the  stage 
and  gives  the  other  characters  their  respective 
roles. 

Picture  yourself  doing  what  you  want  to 
do,  and  because  your  life  follows  your 
thoughts,  some  day  you  will  be  doing  it. 

If  you  find  it  difficult  to  form  these  pictures 
of  yourself  it  is  probably  due  to  your  not  hav- 

140 


HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 
ing  a  sufficiently  definite  idea  of  what  you 
want  to  do. 

Go  back  then  to  the  first  stage  and  make 
your  decision.  From  that  time  on  expect 
yourself  to  accomplish  this. 

In  every  human  being  there  are  enormous 
untapped  resources,  undiscovered  possibilities, 
far  greater  capacities  than  he  has  dreamed  he 
possessed.  Place  yourself  where  they  must 
save  you,  where  you  must  sink  or  swim,  and 
what  happens  will  astound  you. 

Deep  in  the  inmost  recesses  of  your  soul 
are  untouched  mines  of  energy.  If  you  blast 
deep  enough  you  will  find  them.  But  the 
only  thing  that  ever  goes  deep  enough  to 
bring  out  the  greatest  ones  is  jeopardy. 

The  most  priceless  thing  that  can  ever  come 
into  a  life  is  that  book,  that  event,  that  ser- 
mon, that  experience,  that  emergency,  that 
catastrophe, — that  something  which  sounds 
the  depths  of  a  man's  nature  and  flings  wide 
the  doors  of  his  own  great  within. 

It  is  not  the  man  you  are  which  is  most  im- 
portant to  you,  but  the  man  you  are  capable 
of  becoming.  Place  yourself  in  the  situations 
that  will  bring  out  that  possible  man. 

This  best  part  of  you  may  be  submerged 
under  all  sorts  of  debris — fear,  timidity,  doubt, 

141 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

uncertainty  and  self-consciousness — but  it  is 
there.  You  can  bring  it  out  and  place  it  at  the 
helm  of  your  life  if  you  try. 

You  were  born  to  conquer,  to  play  a  leading 
part  on  the  world's  stage.  But  you  will  never 
play  it,  you  will  never  do  anything  superb 
until  you  believe  in  yourself. 

The  story  of  David  and  Goliath  is  not  far 
fetched.  The  pebbles  of  self-confidence  in  the 
sling  of  aggressiveness  have  enabled  many  a 
little  man  to  vanquish  a  giant. 

Show  me  any  great  accomplisher  and  I  will 
show  you  a  man  of  great  confidence  in  him- 
self, in  his  aim,  and  in  his  own  ability.  If 
there  is  a  link  between  God  and  man  it  must 
be  this  thing  of  self-faith. 

Start  today  toward  the  realization  of  the 
things  you  desire.  Look  upon  them  as  pos- 
sible of  attainment.  Make  your  visualization 
of  them  concrete,  practical,  and  then  believe 
you  can  get  them. 

Many  people  fail  because  they  look  upon 
their  ambition,  their  life's  dream,  as  a  fanciful 
fiction.  They  think  of  it,  but  only  as  some- 
thing which  can  never  be  realized.  They  do 
not  take  their  ambitions  seriously.  I  hav* 
heard  many  gifted  men  and  women  gentl 
ridicule  themselves  for  their  ambitions. 

142 


HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 

You  have  got  to  believe  utterly  and  ser- 
iously in  your  ideal  before  you  can  ever  make 
it  real.  No  matter  how  unconventional,  un- 
usual or  impossible  seems  your  ambition, 
don't  lose  faith  in  it.  The  thing  you  call  im- 
possible will  be  done  by  someone  else  tomor- 
row. 

Disraeli,  a  young  English  Jew,  was  sneered 
at  one  day  by  a  political  opponent.  "You 
will  be  sorry  for  that/'  he  said,  "when  I  am 
Prime  Minister  of  England."  That  any  man 
of  his  despised  race  could  achieve  the  highest 
political  office  at  the  command  of  proud  Brit- 
ish nation  would  have  been  laughed  at  as  the 
impossible.  But  Disraeli,  by  his  supreme  self- 
confidence,  did  become  Prime  Minister  of 
England. 

If  you  lack  this  faith  in  yourself  there  is 
one  certain  way  to  acquire  it.  The  way  is 
to  follow  the  three  steps, — suggestion,  visual- 
ization, action. 

Remind  yourself  every  hour  of  the  day  that 
you  are  a  human  being  and  no  human  being 
was  ever  born  timid.  Visualize  yourself  in 
the  place  you  wish  to  be,  doing  what  you  wish 
to  do,  having  what  you  wish  to  have.  Then 
act  in  accordance  with  your  ideal. 

143 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

It  is  not  difficult  to  act  in  accordance  with 
your  ideal  if  you  faithfully  live  up  to  the  first 
two  stages.  Keeping  the  thought  of  your  am- 
bition before  your  eyes  automatically  com- 
pels you  to  act  in  harmony  with  it.  When- 
ever you  find  it  difficult  to  live  up  to  your  ex- 
pectations it  is  because  you  have  not  etched 
the  picture  with  sufficient  clearness  in  your 
own  mind. 

Let  me  beg  of  you  not  to  yield  to  the  temp- 
tation to  pass  lightly  or  doubtingly  over  these 
great  truths.  If  you  do  you  are  cheating  your- 
self. There  is  no  irony  comparable  to  that 
of  a  man  doubting  his  own  divinity.  One  of 
the  greatest  difficulties  in  the  world  is  to  get 
people  to  realize  their  own  bigness.  They  are 
their  own  jailers.  They  keep  themselves  in 
prison. 

Perhaps  it  will  help  you  to  see  that  these 
statements  are  not  mere  vaporings  of  an  op- 
timist, if  I  quote  to  you  something  America's 
greatest  psychological  thinker,  Professor  Wil- 
liam James  of  Harvard,  once  said:  "Each  of 
us,"  he  declared,  "has  resources  of  which  he 
does  not  dream.  If  we  could  only  turn  an 
X-ray  on  ourselves  most  of  us  would  find 
powers  in  the  great  within  of  us  which  may 
not  have  gotten  even  to  the  germinating  stage. 

144 


HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 

There  is  probably  not  a  living  being  who 
would  not  be  amazed  if  he  could  see  all  of 
the  potentialities  within  himself.  If  he  could 
he  would  probably  say,  These  remarkable 
qualities  belong  to  someone  who  has  achieved, 
not  to  an  unknown  person  like  me.'  " 

The  real  problem  is  to  know  how  to  get  at 
these  gold  mines  within  yourself.  You  can 
solve  that  problem  if  you  will  follow  the  in- 
structions in  this  lesson. 

First  of  all,  refuse  to  recall  the  failures  you 
have  made  in  the  past.  Whenever  the  mem- 
ory of  yourself  in  a  humiliated,  dejected  state 
comes  to  you  say  to  yourself,  "That  is  gone. 
I  shall  never  appear  that  way  again."  Keep 
your  mind  on  the  pleasant  memories  if  you 
must  reminisce. 

But  if  you  really  want  to  accomplish  some- 
thing great  remember  this:  memories,  whether 
pleasant  or  unpleasant,  are  thieves  of  the 
mind.  The  past  can  never  be  lived  again. 
The  future  is  what  counts.  Every  thought 
you  give  to  the  past  steals  the  mental  energy 
you  should  be  devoting  to  the  future. 

Let  me  tell  you  at  this  point  about  your 
chief  handicap  when  you  are  attempting  to 
act  self -confidently.  It  is  this:  you  do  not 
act  as  you  really  feel.  If  you  would  conquer 

145 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

self-consciousness,  overcome  timidity  and  ac- 
quire perfect  self-confidence,  never  attempt 
to  say  things  or  do  things  in  which  you  are 
not  absolutely  sincere.  In  other  words,  be 
yourself. 

Most  self -consciousness  comes  from  the  at- 
tempt to  make  people  believe  you  feel  or  think 
something  you  do  not. 

I  do  not  mean  by  this  that  you  are  to  be 
blunt,  discourteous,  or  selfish, — quite  the  re- 
verse. I  mean  that  if  you  really  want  to  "put 
yourself  over,"  be  sure  it  is  yourself  and  not 
someone  else  you  try  to  put  over. 

Don't  assume  unnatural  accents.  For  in- 
stance: If  you  are  a  Westerner  in  the  Blast, 
don't  try  to  copy  their  broad  A's  or  slight  your 
R's.  You  may  feel  conspicuous  at  first,  but 
people  want  you  to  be  natural,  not  necessarily 
like  themselves.  In  fact,  a  secret  contempt, 
more  or  less  subconscious,  is  aroused  by  the 
person  who  tries  to  imitate  others. 

Imitation  is  undesirable  for  many  reasons, 
but  chiefly  because  it  is  always  detected.  Any 
attempt  on  your  part  to  copy  the  mannerisms, 
poses,  or  attitudes  of  others  is  sure  to  make 
you  self-conscious,  and  this  self-consciousness 
makes  you  much  more  conspicuous  than  your 
own  would. 

146 


HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 

The  very  first  element  of  true  self-confi- 
dence is  sincerity. 

The  second  is  spontaneity.  No  one  cares 
to  hear  what  you  say  if  they  imagine  you  do 
not  believe  it  yourself,  but  the  whole  world 
will  listen  when  you  say  what  you  earnestly 
believe.  Nothing  can  be  so  foolish,  so  ridicu- 
lous, that  you  cannot  get  a  hearing  for  it  pro- 
vided you  believe  in  it  with  your  whole  heart. 

The  next  time  you  meet  anybody,  the  next 
time  you  face  any  situation,  act  out  your  real 
self.  If  you  will  do  this  you  will  never  ap- 
pear self-conscious,  for  your  real  self  is  not 
self-conscious.  It  is  self-confident. 

Your  self -consciousness  is  the  result  of  the 
veneer  which  has  been  laid  over  your  real  self 
by  outside  influence. 

Mingle  as  much  as  possible  with  other  peo- 
ple. Seek  opportunities  for  meeting  new  peo- 
ple, and  when  invitations  are  extended  to  you 
by  your  friends,  accept  them.  Force  yourself 
to  say  you  will  come.  Then  that  promise  will 
help  you  to  silence  your  weaker  self  when,  as 
usual,  it  comes  whispering  to  you  not  to  go. 

I  know  a  young  woman  not  at  all  indus- 
trious who  never  feels  the  urge  to  work  until 
a  social  engagement  is  demanded  of  her.  She 
usually  refuses,  declaring  she  has  so  much  to 

147 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

do  she  doesn't  see  how  she  can  arrange  it. 
If  by  any  chance  she  is  lured  into  accepting 
she  almost  invariably  cancels  the  engagement 
later,  describing  at  length  the  pressing  duty 
which  has  intervened. 

Now  this  young  woman  imagines  she  is 
telling  the  truth,  but  her  friends  know  the  real 
reason  is  her  timidity.  She  recoils  from  con- 
tact with  others.  She  shrinks  before  even  her 
best  friends.  She  withdraws  into  herself  and 
stays  there,  with  the  result  that  she  is  becom- 
ing more  and  more  self-conscious.  That  self- 
consciousness  is  ruining  her  life. 

You  must  not  only  mingle  with  people 
when  they  invite  you,  you  must  invite  them 
occasionally,  not  for  etiquette's  sake,  but  be- 
cause taking  the  lead  will  force  you  to  take 
responsibility  and  this  will  bring  out  your  in- 
itiative. After  all,  it  is  up  to  you  to  do  your 
share  in  the  world. 

Timid  people  are  constantly  feeling  neg- 
lected, humiliated  and  desolate.  They  usually 
repel  advances,  yet  are  hurt  when  the  ad- 
vances are  not  continued.  The  sensitiveness 
which  accentuated  their  timidity  in  the  first 
place  makes  them  poignantly  aware  whenever 
they  are  left  out.  But  this  is  the  inevitable 
result  of  timidity. 

148 


HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 
If  you  want  to  be  sought  after,  loved  and 
admired,  remember  you  must  "do  your  bit/' 
The  world  doesn't  owe  you  anything  except 
what  you  earn.  If  you  contribute  nothing  to 
the  happiness,  progress  and  inspiration  of 
others,  after  a  while  no  one  will  contribute 
these  things  to  you. 

Right  here  I  come  to  what  I  believe  is  the 
highest,  and  to  many  the  most  impelling,  mo- 
tive for  conquering  timidity, — the  desire  to 
help  humanity.  Most  timid  people,  as  I  have 
said  before,  are  more  mental,  more  sensitive, 
more  sympathetic  on  the  whole,  than  others. 
These  qualities  make  the  retiring  man  a  lover 
of  mankind,  a  sympathizer  with  the  woes, 
hardships  and  tragedies  of  his  f ellowmen.  He 
often  longs  to  serve  mankind,  to  be  an  in- 
spiration to  the  world. 

But  the  timid  man  never  inspired  anybody. 
In  the  presence  of  timidity  we  are  always  de- 
pressed. The  timid  man  cannot  lead.  He 
cannot  even  lift  because  his  timidity  makes  us 
doubt  his  strength.  The  world's  homage,  the 
world's  salvation  are  in  the  hands  of  the 
strong,  the  courageous, — the  people  of  sub- 
lime self-confidence.  If  your  own  salvation 
is  not  sufficient  incentive  to  induce  you  to  f  ol- 

149 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
low  the  other  rules  laid  down  in  this  lesson, 
perhaps  the  desire  to  help  humanity  can. 

Self-confidence  does  not  mean  that  a  man 
should  be  boisterous,  bold  or  scatter  things 
right  and  left  like  a  bull  in  a  china  shop.  He 
must  never  intimidate  others.  It  means  the 
frank,  democratic,  sincere  expression  of  him- 
self. It  means  showing  the  world  that  he  is 
a  human  being,  not  an  excuse. 

God  made  you.  He  made  you  to  stand  up 
straight,  to  look  the  whole  world  in  the  eye, 
to  be  a  credit  to  that  force  which  created  you. 
Some  animals  walk  on  all  fours,  but  for  sev- 
eral million  years  now,  man  has  been  walking 
on  his  two  hind  legs.  Don't  let  those  millions 
of  years  of  evolution  be  lost  on  you.  Don't 
cringe.  Don't  crawl.  Don't  apologize.  Don't 
take  a  back  seat.  Don't  make  excuses.  Don't 
whine.  Don't  cower.  And  if  you  do  any  of 
these  things  here  is  another  don't:  Don't 
justify  yourself  with  any  self-righteous  ex- 
cuses. If  you  are  timid  it  is  not  for  any  of 
the  reasons  you  have  been  giving  yourself. 
It  is  because  you  are  scared. 

Fear  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  timidity.  If 
you  have  been  salving  your  sore  of  self -con- 
sciousness with  the  idea  that  humility  is  right- 

150 


HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 

eous,  start  your  emancipation  today  by  getting 
honest  with  yourself. 

Humility  is  pride  under  a  cloak.  Most  of 
the  people  who  prate  against  pride  are  secretly 
proud  of  their  humility.  They  make  a  virtue 
of  their  vice  and  it  is  the  worst  vice  in  the 
world — fear. 

God  must  love  courage  or  he  would  not 
give  His  richest  rewards  for  it.  Certain  it  is 
that  the  courageous  man  brings  God  to  your 
mind,  expresses  godliness  and  reassures  you 
of  your  own  divinity. 

"The  survival  of  the  fittest"  seems  to  be 
God's  law.  It  is  no  accident  that  the  fearsome, 
retiring,  self-effacing,  self-depreciatory  fail  to 
win  even  the  love  that  insures  reproduction. 
It  is  no  accident  that  everything,  from  a  stalk 
of  wheat  to  a  human  being,  grows  with  its 
head  up,  not  down. 

Whenever  you  meet  anyone,  let  him  see 
by  your  tone,  the  poise  of  your  body,  the 
expression  of  your  eye,  the  enthusiasm  of 
your  words  and  the  earnestness  of  your  hand- 
shake that  you  are  no  worm  of  the  dust.  Be 
sure  at  the  same  time  to  show  him  that  he  too 
is  one  of  God's  creatures. 

Never  take  another  man's  share.  Never 
cheat.  Never  impose.  These  things  are  done 

151 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

by  the  man  who  does  not  trust  himself  in  the 
open,  who  doubts  his  ability  to  win  under  the 
rules  of  the  game,  and  are  therefore  not  the 
earmarks  of  the  courageous,  but  the  brands 
of  the  coward. 

Give  every  man  his  chance.  Give  every 
man  his  due.  Give  every  man  a  boost.  Give 
every  man  tolerance, — even  the  timid  man. 
But  never  let  any  other  man  take  your  chance. 
Never  infringe  on  his  territory,  but  never  let 
him  infringe  on  yours.  Let  him  see  that  you 
are  fair  and  square  but  not  "easy."  Let  him 
see  that  you  will  never  encroach  on  him  and 
that  he  better  not  try  to  encroach  on  you. 

I  will  illustrate  what  I  mean  by  two  pic- 
tures, one  concerning  the  insignificant  things 
of  life  and  the  other  the  most  vital. 

The  first  one  is  a  moving  picture  of  a  street 
car.  A  group  of  people  are  waiting  for  it. 
The  first  one  in  line  is  a  timid  woman.  Every- 
one knows  she  was  the  first  one  there.  She 
knows  it  herself  better  than  they  do,  but  be- 
cause of  habit  she  steps  back  and  lets  every 
one  else  in  ahead  of  her.  The  last  seat  is 
taken  just  as  she  gets  inside  and  she  hangs  to 
a  strap. 

The  other  is  a  picture  of  a  home  where 
the  parents  are  always  taking  a  back  seat  for 

152 


HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 
their  children,  always  giving  up,  always  sac- 
rificing, always  going  without  necessities  that 
they  may  furnish  their  children  with  luxuries. 
As  those  children  begin  to  grow  up,  father 
and  mother  begin  to  dwindle  in  their  estima- 
tion because  they  wouldn't  take  the  time,  the 
clothes  or  the  energy  away  from  their  children 
to  cultivate  friends.  Father  and  mother  sel- 
dom go  out. 

Now  people  who  do  not  go  out  among 
others  frequently  fall  behind  the  times.  Father 
and  mother  realize  they  are  behind  the  times 
and  hesitate  to  express  opinions  to  these  pre- 
cocious young  men  and  women  of  theirs.  In 
a  little  while  father  and  mother  are  unmistak- 
ably timid  before  their  own  children.  Their 
admonitions,  advice  and  suggestions  have  lit- 
tle weight.  The  children  go  their  respective 
ways.  The  morale  of  the  home  is  broken,  as 
well  as  the  lives  of  the  parents. 

These  are  two  widely  different  pictures. 
One  deals  with  the  little  things  and  the  other 
with  the  biggest  things  in  human  life.  The 
woman  who  lets  everyone  else  have  her  place 
on  the  street  car,  and  the  parents,  did  the  same 
thing, — they  gave  the  chance  which  rightfully 
belonged  to  themselves  to  those  to  whom  it 

153 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
did  not  belong,  who  could  not  profit  by  it,  and 
who  despised  them  for  doing  it. 

In  every  event  of  your  life,  from  the  small- 
est thing  to  the  greatest,  hold  your  own. 
Don't  push  in  ahead  of  the  other  fellow.  Take 
your  place  in  line;  don't  take  the  other  fel- 
low's; but  don't  let  even  your  children  take 
yours. 

Developing  self-confidence  is  not  a  difficult 
task,  but  it  does  require  patience  and  intelli- 
gent efforts.  Don't  hurry.  Don't  be  anxious. 
Don't  strain.  Don't  attempt  to  change  your- 
self overnight.  Don't  be  like  the  man  who 
tried  to  jump  over  the  hill.  He  went  a  long 
way  back  and  ran  so  hard  that  when  he  got  to 
the  hill  he  was  obliged  to  lie  down  and  rest. 

Don't  lose  time  or  discourage  yourself  by 
being  over-strenuous  in  following  the  rules  of 
this  lesson.  Begin  at  the  bottom  and  walk 
over  the  hill. 

Do  something  each  day  in  accordance  with 
the  rules  of  this  lesson.  Start  with  the  easy 
things  and  work  up  to  those  that  are  hardest. 

Let  your  self-respect  show  in  your  eyes,  in 
the  triumphant  attitude  toward  every  situa- 
tion and  every  individual. 

Stop  thinking  of  yourself  as  a  nobody,  a 
weakling  and  a  failure.  Whenever  this  picture 

154 


HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 
comes  into  your  mind,  substitute  for  it  the 
picture  of  yourself  as  you  long  to  be.  Hold 
it  there.  Don't  let  anything  or  anybody  make 
you  change  the  slide,  and  some  day  you  will 
be  that  person.  Some  day  that  picture  will 
come  true. 

Failure  is  like  worry, — a  bully.  The  mo- 
ment you  show  you  are  not  afraid  of  Failure, 
that  instant  failure  becomes  afraid  of  you. 
He  is  a  bluff,  a  phantom  created  by  your 
own  imagination. 

No  matter  how  many  times  you  have  gone 
down  to  defeat;  no  matter  how  many  times 
you  have  been  conquered,  lashed  by  humilia- 
tion; no  matter  how  these  things  have  affected 
peoples'  confidence  in  you,  take  a  new  grip  on 
yourself,  give  yourself  a  chance  and  in  six 
months  you  will  have  reversed  their  opinion 
of  you. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  other  people  are  not  as 
conscious  of  you  and  your  mistakes  as  you 
imagine.  They  are  busy  with  their  own  trou- 
bles. They  are  not  thinking  of  you  at  all,  they 
are  wondering  what  you  think  about  them. 

If  you  have  lost  your  money,  that  means 
that  you  have  really  only  lost  time.  You  have 
gained  experience  which  should  make  your 

155 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
time  from  now  on  worth  double.     You  have 
not  lost  your  life  or  your  manhood.     Every- 
thing else  can  be  retrieved. 

Already  you  are  learning  to  think  right. 
When  you  think  right  you  can  fight  right,  and 
the  man  who  can  fight  right  wins.  Don't 
yearn  for  strength,  earn  it. 

The  mind  is  the  instrument  with  which  you 
accomplish  any  purpose.  If  you  will  keep, 
the  picture  of  yourself  as  a  conqueror  before 
your  mind,  the  picture  of  yourself  as  a  timid 
man  cannot  get  in.  To  do  this  will  not  be 
easy  the  first  day,  but  it  will  be  easier  the 
second,  and  after  you  have  practiced  it  a  week 
you  will  be  surprised  at  the  ease  with  which 
you  conquer  in  the  little  things. 

I  once  heard  a  man,  whose  life  had  been  a 
failure,  boasting  of  the  fact  that  he  had  never 
fooled  himself  by  building  castles  in  the  air. 
As  he  was  a  man  of  real  ability,  I  had  some- 
times wondered  why  he  had  failed,  but  I  did 
not  wonder  after  that  remark.  Every  man 
who  ever  achieved  anything  did  just  what  I 
am  asking  you  to  do, — built  his  castles  in  the 
air  first  and  then  put  foundations  under  them. 

Your  belief  in  yourself  tells  your  story,  pre- 
dicts it  years  in  advance,  predicts  it  so  clearly 

156 


HOW  TO  BE  SELF-CONFIDENT 

that  every  psychologist  can  tell  about  where 
you  will  land  with  any  given  mental  attitude. 

The  men  and  armies  that  triumphed  against 
great  odds  have  always  been  found  to  have 
had  confidence  in  themselves. 

When  Henry  Ward  Beecher  went  to  Eng- 
land he  once  rose  to  speak  before  a  large  meet- 
ing which  was  so  opposed  to  him  that  it 
hooted,  hissed  and  yelled.  But  it  did  not 
down  Beecher.  He  looked  that  great  audience 
straight  in  the  eye,  not  with  pugnacity  nor  de- 
fiance, but  utter  self-confidence.  He  literally 
cowed  it  into  subjection.  Then  he  proceeded 
to  preach  for  two  hours.  He  was  one  man. 
He  faced  thousands  of  other  men  and  their 
hostility,  and  won. 

Clemenceau  of  France,  Gladstone  of  Eng- 
land, Wilson,  Roosevelt  and  Bryan  of  our 
own  country  illustrate  the  power  of  self-con- 
fidence. 

It  was  not  the  strength  of  the  French  that 
stopped  the  Germans  at  Verdun, — it  was  the 
might  of  mind.  For  days  before,  the  gen- 
erals sent  the  affirmation,  "They  shall  not 
pass"  down  the  line,  asking  each  man  to  pass 
it  to  the  next  and  to  repeat  it  every  moment 
until  the  battle  should  come. 

157 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
That  conviction,   flaming  in  the  minds  of 
the  French,  gave  to  them,  through  the  law 
whose    mysteries    we    have    not    solved,    the 
power  that  brought  victory. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  solve  the  mysteries  of 
this  great  law  in  order  to  use  it,  any  more  than 
it  is  necessary  for  you  to  understand  engineer- 
ing in  order  to  drive  you  own  car. 

We  are  discussing  practical  psychology.  I 
do  not  pretend  to  explain  how  affirmation  and 
visualization  give  you  the  power  to  do  what 
you  affirm.  I  only  know  they  do.  I  do  not 
know  why  this  law  works  nor  just  how  it 
works, — and  no  one  else  knows.  I  only  know 
it  works.  I  want  you  to  put  it  to  work  in 
your  own  life.  Put  it  to  the  test.  Try  out 
what  I  have  taught  you  in  this  lesson.  It  will 
remake  your  life. 


158 


CHAPTER  IV 
HOW  TO  STAY  YOUNG 

'The  minute  a  man  ceases  to  grow,  no  mat- 
ter what  his  years,  that  minute  he  begins  to  be 
old." 

WILLIAM  JAMES. 

N  the  past  people  went  to  two  ex- 
tremes in  their  ideas  concerning  the 
prolongation  of  youth.  There 
were  those  who  foolishly  believed 
in  "charms"  and  miracles  for  restoring  lost 
youth.  As  children  we  all  learned  in  our  his- 
tories of  the  expedition  of  Ponce  de  Leon,  who 
claimed  to  have  discovered  the  "Fountain  of 
Eternal  Youth"  on  the  Western  hemisphere, 
and  of  the  pilgrimages  of  those  who  believed 
him.  To  the  other  extreme  have  been  those 
who  took  it  for  granted  that  the  prolongation 
of  youth  or  youthf ulness  beyond  a  certain  ar- 
bitrary point  was  impossible.  Neither  of  these 
extremes  was  right. 

Today  all  thinking  people  recognize  the  pos- 
sibility of  extending  the  period  of  youthful- 
less  far  into  the  years  of  later  life,  and  the 

159 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
methods  for  doing  so  are  in  practice.     It  is 
these  means  and  methods  which  I  am  going  to 
give  you  in  this  lesson. 

If  the  idea  of  extending  life  and  prolonging 
youth  seems  fantastical  to  you,  turn  to  the 
laws  of  nature,  to  your  biology.  There  you 
will  find  that  in  all  mammals  except  man  the 
period  of  life  is  five  times  the  period  of 
growth.  A  dog  gets  its  full  growth  in  two 
years  and  lives  ten;  a  horse  in  five  years  and 
lives  twenty-five.  Man,  who  does  not  attain 
his  full  physical  stature  until  twenty  and  his 
complete  physical  development  not  until 
twenty-five,  should  therefore  live  from  one 
hundred  to  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  years, 
normally. 

One  of  the  greatest  tragedies  in  life  is  that 
just  as  we  learn  how  to  live  we  die.  Just  as 
we  have  learned  the  value  of  life  it  is  taken 
away.  Just  when  the  great  men  and  women 
have  proven  their  right  to  lead  us  and  gained 
our  confidence,  they  pass  on,  and  each  gen- 
eration makes  all  over  again  most  of  the  mis- 
takes of  previous  generations. 

All  great  men  and  women  leave  their  work 
unfinished.  Susan  B.  Anthony,  the  great 
founder  of  the  Woman's  Suffrage  movement 

160 


HOW  TO  STAY  YOUNG 
in  America,  said  on  her  death  bed  at  eighty- 
six,  "I  have  done  so  little." 

The  gain  to  the  world  when  we  learn  how 
to  keep  youth  cannot  be  measured.  Even 
these  great  people  who  did  so  much  for  us 
could  have  accomplished  more  had  they  real- 
ized the  possibility  of  extending  the  period  of 
their  service. 

That  it  is  possible  to  do  this  has  been 
proved.  Titian  painted  up  to  the  time  of  his 
death  at  ninety-nine.  LaPlace,  the  astron- 
omer, made  one  of  the  greatest  discoveries 
just  before  his  death,  at  eighty-eight.  Glad- 
stone was  Prime  Minister  of  England  at  eighty- 
three,  and  the  year  before  mastered  a  new 
language.  Rodin,  the  greatest  sculptor  of 
modern  times,  died  at  seventy-seven,  and  pro- 
duced some  of  his  greatest  masterpieces  in  the 
last  months  of  his  life.  William  Dean  How- 
ells,  who  is  nearing  the  ninety-year  mark,  has 
not  only  a  young  body  but  a  mind  so  young 
that  he  is  still  in  charge  of  a  department,  'The 
Easy  Chair,"  in  one  of  America's  leading  mag- 
azines. Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox  and  Amelia  E. 
Barr  wrote  brilliantly  up  to  their  last  days, 
though  advanced  in  years  far  beyond  the  sup- 
posed "limit"  of  three  score  and  ten.  Sarah 

161 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

Bernhardt,  at  76,  still  holds  not  only  the  stage, 
but  the  laurels  as  the  world's  greatest  actress. 

All  of  these  obeyed,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, most  of  the  laws  laid  down  in  this 
lesson.  If  you  will  obey  them  you  can  add 
from  five  to  fifty  years  to  your  life. 

Before  I  tell  you  these  rules  let  us  see  what 
it  is  that  makes  people  old.  The  processes 
are  both  mental  and  physical  as  are  all  pro- 
cesses of  thinking  creatures. 

The  mistakes  people  make  concerning  their 
bodies  are  manifold.  If  you  want  to  keep 
your  body  young,  obey  the  rules  of  Chapter  I, 
this  volume. 

In  this  lesson  I  shall  explain  the  part  that 
the  mind  plays  in  the  ageing  of  an  individual. 
In  this  more  than  anything  we  have  discussed 
up  to  this  time  the  subconscious  plays  a  lead- 
ing part. 

As  we  have  already  seen,  the  90  per  cent 
of  the  mind  which  is  subconscious,  forms  the 
mainspring  of  our  conduct.  You  think  and 
act,  not  in  accordance  with  your  reason,  as 
you  have  fondly  supposed,  but  more  or  less 
automatically  in  response  to  the  habits  of  this 
submerged  nine-tenths.  This  may  be  likened 
to  the  cargo  of  an  ocean  liner  which  lies  be- 

162 


HOW  TO  STAY  YOUNG 
neath  the  surface.  The  most  important  part 
of  you  is  under  the  surface.  The  direction  in 
which  you  go,  the  port  at  which  you  arrive, 
depends  on  how  the  machinery  works  down 
there  in  the  hull. 

As  we  have  already  found,  the  subcon- 
scious is  made  largely  by  suggestion.  It  takes 
on  its  tendencies  from  suggestion,  and  in  ac- 
cordance with  this  nature  directs  your  life. 

How  does  this  affect  youthfulness?  From 
early  babyhood  we  are  taught  that  we  will 
grow  old  at  a  certain  time.  We  are  informed 
when  we  ask  why  other  people  have  gray  hair, 
stooped  shoulders  and  wrinkles,  that  these 
things  are  the  result  of  age.  When  we  ask 
what  is  meant  by  age  we  are  told  that  all 
people  at  forty  or  so  begin  to  look  like  that. 
We  are  told  that  when  we  have  lived  forty 
years  or  more  we  too  will  begin  to  look  like 
that.  The  certainty  of  it  sinks  into  our  minds, 
and  from  that  day  we  invite,  expect  and  pre- 
pare for  old  age. 

We  think  of  the  years  up  to  forty  as  the 
only  years  in  which  we  can  accomplish.  We 
think  of  everything  after  that  as  a  general 
fading-out.  We  consider  ourselves  of  middle 
age  at  fifty,  and  expect  nothing  of  ourselves 
after  sixty.  The  parents  who  have  property 

163 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
decide  early  in  life  how  they  are  going  to 
divide  it  among  their  children.  They  get  ready 
to  relinquish  it.  Father,  who  is  as  good  a  man 
as  any  of  his  sons,  divides  the  farm  or  the 
business;  mother  passes  her  pretty  things, — 
the  real  lace,  her  jewelry  and  other  treas- 
ures,— on  to  her  daughters,  saying,  "I  shall 
not  need  them  any  more.  I  am  getting  too  old 
for  them.  I  will  not  live  to  wear  them  out." 
They  make  all  preparations  save  those  of  the 
undertaker,  for  laying  themselves  on  the  shelf. 

If  they  do  not  have  property  they  wonder 
which  of  their  children  they  will  inflict  them- 
selves upon  when  they  are  old. 

They  have  gone  along  to  a  certain  age — 
the  age  when  people  are  supposed  to  grow 
old — and  they  think  it  is  time  to  droop,  time  to 
sag,  time  to  begin  the  process  of  decay.  They 
resign  themselves  to  it,  talk  about  it,  think 
about  it,  write  to  their  friends  about  it,  and 
look  for  it  in  others. 

The  first  question  a  woman  usually  asks  of 
another  woman  after  she  passes  her  thirtieth 
milestone  is,  "Don't  you  think  I  am  looking 
older?  Tell  me  honestly,  now!"  Men  don't 
ask  it  of  their  friends,  but  they  would  if  they 
dared.  Pretty  soon  they  walk,  talk,  sag,  droop 
and  act  like  old  men  and  old  women.  The 

164 


HOW  TO  STAY  YOUNG 
man  who  walks,  talks,  sags  and  thinks  like  an 
old  man  is  soon  in  very  truth  an  old  man. 

They  keep  themselves  reminded  of  their  ad- 
vancing years.  They  are  conscious  every  mo- 
ment of  their  age.  They  call  attention  to  the 
fact  that  they  are  getting  old  by  having  birth- 
day parties  which  remind  not  only  them- 
selves, but  all  others  of  "how  time  is  flying." 

Father  watches  the  mirror  for  baldness  and 
mother  for  double  chins.  They  say  they  must 
not  spend  this  or  that  because  they  are  going 
to  need  it  for  their  "old  age."  They  do  not 
attempt  new  projects  because  they  fear  they 
will  not  be  able  to  finish  them. 

This  feeling  that  one's  time  is  limited  is  re- 
sponsible for  the  loss  to  the  world  of  many 
great  achievements. 

A  psychologist  whose  knowledge  and  ac- 
curacy could  not  be  doubted,  once  said,  "The 
consciousness  of  the  passage  of  time  has  a 
great  influence  in  printing  wrinkles  in  our 
faces  and  graying  our  hairs." 

In  substantiation  of  it  he  told  a  story,  for 
whose  authenticity  I  cannot  vouch,  but  which 
I  will  ask  you  to  accept  for  the  grain  of  truth 
which  it  contains. 

The  story  goes  that  a  beautiful  girl  of 
twenty  years  was  engaged  to  be  married.  At 

165 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
the  hour  for  which  her  wedding  had  been  set 
and  just  as  she  was  dressed  for  the  ceremony, 
word  was  brought  that  her  fiancee  had  been 
killed. 

The  shock  robbed  her  of  her  reason.  She 
never  regained  it,  though  she  lived  to  be  81 
years  old. 

Every  day  of  her  life  thereafter  she  dressed 
herself  in  her  trousseau  at  the  wedding  hour 
and  waited  for  her  bridegroom. 

The  wedding  gown  turned  yellow  with  age. 
The  veil  became  tattered  shreds,  but  the  face 
of  the  woman  remained  that  of  a  twenty-year- 
old  girl.  Her  hair  did  not  turn  gray.  The 
plumpness  of  her  cheeks  was  but  slightly 
diminished  and  her  form  was  as  girlish  as  it 
had  been  sixty  years  before. 

The  psychologist  who  vouched  for  the  story 
declared  he  believed  the  retention  of  her  youth 
was  due  to  the  fact  that  she  had  no  conscious- 
ness of  the  passage  of  time.  To  her  she  was 
always  twenty  years  old.  Every  day  was  her 
wedding  day. 

This  story  may  or  may  not  be  true,  but 
there  is  a  lesson  in  it  nevertheless. 

If  you  want  to  know  whether  or  not  you 
are  making  yourself  old  ahead  of  your  time 
try  these  tests  on  yourself: 

166 


HOW  TO  STAY  YOUNG 

Are  you  living  in  the  past?  Do  you  think 
of  the  times  that  are  gone  as  the  best  times? 
Do  you  live  over  the  triumphs  and  successes 
of  the  past?  Do  you  give  more  thought  to  re- 
membering the  successes  of  yesterday  than  to 
planning  successes  for  the  future? 

Are  you  beginning  to  tell  fibs  about  your 
age?  Are  you  habitually  comparing  yourself 
with  younger  people,  regretting  that  you  have 
lost  your  youthful  charms? 

Are  you  beginning  to  look  for  ill  health? 
Are  you  keeping  an  eagle  eye  out  for  the 
break  in  your  physical  condition? 

Are  you  always  wishing  you  could  start 
over  with  the  knowledge  of  today?  Are 
you  constantly  reminding  yourself  that  there 
would  be  some  chance  for  you  if  you  could 
start  all  over  five,  ten  or  twenty  years  back, 
and  are  you  taking  it  for  granted  that  because 
you  can't  do  this  you  cannot  amount  to  any- 
thing? Do  you  dislike  to  see  the  seasons  roll 
around  because  each  one  ticks  off  a  segment 
of  your  life? 

Do  you  spend  time  regretting,  hating,  envy- 
ing other  people?  Are  you  in  the  habit  of  ex- 
cusing yourself  for  not  accomplishing  as  much 
as  other  people  on  the  ground  that  you  are 
older  than  they? 

167 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

Are  you  getting  careless  about  your  per- 
sonal appearance, — the  way  you  do  your  hair, 
the  fit  of  your  clothes, — and  slackening  a  bit 
in  your  walk?  Do  you  say,  just  because  a 
garment  is  of  light  color,  "Oh,  that  is  too 
young  for  me"? 

If  you  are  doing  these  things  you  are  be- 
ginning to  slide  down  the  grade  to  old  age. 

If  you  are  getting  habitual  about  anything, 
if  you  are  getting  "set"  in  your  ways,  less 
open  minded, — if  you  find  it  hard  to  laugh  at 
things  that  are  really  funny,  you  are  getting 
old. 

If  you  are  doing  things  just  as  you  have 
done  them  for  years  in  spite  of  all  our  modern 
inventions  and  better  methods,  you  are  get- 
ting old. 

If  you  dislike  to  make  new  friends,  you  are 
getting  old. 

If  you  think  you  have  to  do  anything  just 
because  you  always  have  done  it,  you  are  get- 
ting old.  If  you  can't  have  your  plans  upset 
without  feeling  that  the  world  is  in  a  jumble, 
you  are  getting  old.  If  you  can  only  do  cer- 
tain things  on  certain  days,  or  under  certain 
conditions,  you  are  getting  old. 

If  you  are  voting  the  same  old  ticket  your 
father  voted  without  knowing  why,  you  are 

168 


HOW  TO  STAY  YOUNG 

getting  old.  If  you  are  voting  the  Republican 
ticket  because  you  didn't  approve  of  Bryan's 
16  to  1  ideas,  you  are  getting  old.  If  you 
are  voting  the  Democratic  ticket  for  no  other 
reason  that  that  you  happened  to  believe  in 
the  free  coinage  of  silver,  you  are  equally  out 
of  date.  If  you  call  all  Socialists  "anarchists," 
and  all  radicals  "alien  enemies/'  you  are  forty 
years  behind  on  the  first  conviction  and  al- 
ready two  years  behind  on  the  second.  Catch 
up  with  the  procession! 

If  you  are  still  going  every  Sunday  to  the 
same  old  church  for  the  same  old  reasons  that 
led  you  to  affiliate  with  it  thirty  years  ago, 
without  investigating  once  in  a  while  whether 
or  not  it  is  meeting  the  soul-needs  of  the  peo- 
ple of  today,  you  are  getting  old. 

If  you  can't  understand  why  anybody  else 
should  belong  to  a  different  church  or  a  differ- 
ent party  from  yours,  you  are  getting  old. 

If  you  can't  get  enthusiastic  about  anything 
to  the  point  where  you  are  just  a  little  bit 
crazy,  you  are  getting  old.  If  you  haven't  had 
a  real  thrill  over  something  within  the  last 
six  months,  if  you  haven't  been  thoroughly 
aroused  for  something,  against  something,  by 
something  or  despite  something,  you  are  get- 
ting old. 

169 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
If  you  haven't  changed  your  mind  about 
some  fairly  big  world  question  during  the  last 
four  history-making  years,  you  are  getting  old. 

If  you  haven't  laughed  till  the  tears  came  to 
your  eyes  several  times  in  the  last  year,  you 
are  getting  old.  If  you  have  not  felt  those 
same  tears  spring  to  your  eyes  lately  at  the 
sight  of  suffering,  you  are  getting  old. 

If  your  children  make  engagements  to  go 
out  in  the  evening  saying,  "I'll  get  mother  to 
come  over  and  take  care  of  the  babies,"  you 
are  getting  old. 

If  you  turn  up  your  nose  at  psychology;  if 
you  deplore  the  movies;  if  you  declare  that 
the  successful  acting  of  tragedy  died  with 
Mansfield  and  comedy  with  Nat  Goodwin, 
you  are  getting  old. 

And  here  is  the  last  and  perhaps  the  cru- 
cial test:  Do  you  look  with  impatience,  sar- 
casm or  superiority  on  the  activities,  foibles 
and  madnesses  of  young  people?  If  you  take 
a  "holier  than  thou"  attitude  whenever  you 
see  two  young  things  spooning  in  the  park 
and  mutter,  "There's  one  born  every  minute," 
you  are  getting  old  and  you  are  getting  there 
fast,  and  incidentally  hastening  the  minute 
when  your  place  will  be  taken  by  one  of  them. 

170 


HOW  TO  STAY  YOUNG 
But  take  this  consolation, — you  are  not  hope- 
less. 

The  ways  to  stay  young  are  simple  ways, — 
ways  so  simple  that  we  are  inclined  to  under- 
estimate them. 

The  ways  for  staying  young  are  Nature's 
ways  and  therefore  normal  and  easy  of  com- 
prehension. But  man  has  always,  in  seeking 
the  solution  to  a  vital  problem,  looked  afar  off 
when  the  real  answer  usually  lies  at  his  very 
feet. 

It  is  like  the  story  of  the  man  who  wan- 
dered around  the  world  in  search  of  a  four- 
leaf  clover  and  who,  when  he  came  home  to 
die,  discovered  one  growing  at  his  own  door- 
step. 

First  of  all,  if  you  would  stay  young,  lure 
out,  reason  out  or  blast  out  of  your  subcon- 
scious mind  the  notion  that  you  have  just 
naturally  got  to  wither  and  die  when  you 
have  lived  a  certain  number  of  years  on  this 
earth. 

Do  you  know  that  at  no  time  are  you  more 
than  two  years  old?  Not  a  cell  in  your  body 
is  two  years  old.  The  body  and  the  brain  are 
in  a  constant  state  of  building  up  and  tearing 
down,  of  creating  and  casting  off  cells,  and 
the  oldest  cell  in  your  body  at  this  moment 

171 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
has  not  been  there  more  than  18  months.  To- 
day you  do  not  have  in  your  lungs  one  cell 
that  was  there  four  months  ago. 

People  get  old  because  they  imagine  the  ma- 
terial of  which  they  are  made  gets  old  like 
cloth.  The  difference  between  you  and  the 
piece  of  cloth  is  that  you  are  constantly  chang- 
ing. The  stuff  you  are  made  of  is  alive. 
Twenty  million  red  globules  are  manufactured 
in  your  blood  every  time  you  breathe. 

The  new  cells,  as  they  ripen,  take  on  the 
shape  and  attitude  of  those  they  are  succeed- 
ing, and  each  is  so  deeply  impressed  by  the 
subconscious  with  the  feeling  of  age  that  to 
all  outward  appearances  it  is  an  old  cell. 

If  this  sounds  unscientific  let  me  refer  you 
to  an  even  more  advanced  statement  in  de- 
fense of  it  by  the  most  scientific  man  of  our 
time, — Thomas  A.  Edison.  This  is  Mr.  Edi- 
son's theory  and  he  carries  it  so  far  as  to  de- 
clare "Every  cell  in  us  thinks." 

In  the  place  of  your  old  delusion  that  you 
must  die  after  a  certain  number  of  years, 
charge  your  subconscious  with  the  realization 
of  the  ever-changing  materials  of  which  your 
body  and  brain  are  made. 

I  do  not  say  that  this  will  enable  you  to  live 
forever,  but  I  do  know  that  it  will  tend  to 

172 


HOW  TO  STAY  YOUNG 

make  every  cell  take  on  the  youth-attitude  in- 
stead of  the  age-attitude.  I  do  know  that 
those  men  and  women  who  have  lived  longest 
all  had  this  attitude  of  mind. 

Let  yourself  realize  that  you  are  entitled, 
according  to  the  laws  of  biology,  to  from  one 
hundred  to  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  years 
of  life  the  same  as  all  other  mammals. 

Stop  looking  for  the  signs  of  age.  We  al- 
ways find  what  we  look  for. 

Stop  worrying  about  getting  old.  As  we 
found  in  a  previous  lesson,  worry  tends  to 
bring  about  what  you  worry  about.  It  is  more 
true  in  connection  with  old  age  than  almost 
any  other  one  thing,  for  the  reason  that  all 
worry  brings  wrinkles,  negative  processes  and 
ill  health.  Every  fear  thought  tears  down  tis- 
sue and  that  dead  tissue  becomes  debris.  Also, 
all  worry  thoughts  slow  up  the  improving 
processes  to  such  an  extent  that  you  never 
quite  catch  up  again. 

But  worry  about  old  age  is  more  disastrous 
in  bringing  old  age  than  any  other  worry  for 
the  scientific  reason  which  I  have  noted  before 
and  which  is  known  to  all  physiologists  and 
psychologists, — that  every  thought  has  its  cor- 
responding muscular  mechanism.  That  mech- 
anism reacts  with  every  thought. 

173 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

Whenever  you  worry  about  wrinkles, 
wrinkles  respond.  Whenever  you  are  sad,  the 
corners  of  your  mouth  go  down.  When  you 
are  happy  those  same  corners  turn  up.  Keep 
the  corners  turned  up.  Read  Irvin  Cobb,  Ring 
Lardner,  Alice  Duer  Miller,  Walt  Mason, 
George  Patullo,  Octavus  Roy  Cohen,  and  oc- 
casionally browse  through  Twain's  "Innocents 
Abroad." 

Read  two  newspapers.  If  you  have  long 
been  a  subscriber  to  the  most  conservative 
sheet  in  your  neck  of  the  woods,  give  yourself 
a  chance  to  know  the  other  side  by  taking  a 
radical  one.  The  same  holds  good  if  the  most 
radical  paper  is  all  you  have  been  seeing  for 
the  last  five  years. 

Unlock  your  mind.  No  matter  how  rusty 
the  key  is  it  will  work,  for  remember,  you  are 
not  quite  dead. 

In  addition  to  these,  take  the  best  maga- 
zines. If  you  feel  you  can't  afford  to,  cut 
down  on  your  food  and  save  the  money  that 
way.  Inasmuch  as  the  chances  are  that  you 
are  eating  twice  the  amount  you  ought  to  for 
longevity,  you  will  be  killing  two  birds  with 
one  stone. 

Don't  talk  of  the  past.  Talk  of  the  future. 
Think  of  the  future.  Work  for  the  future. 

174 


HOW  TO  STAY  YOUNG 

Believe  there  is  a  future  for  you.  You  are 
justified  in  believing  this  because  believing  it 
will  make  you  act  in  such  a  way  as  to  live 
longer  and  make  a  future  for  yourself. 

Never  let  anyone  have  another  birthday 
party  for  you.  If  that  is  the  best  hint  you  can 
think  of  for  getting  presents  out  of  your 
friends,  let  the  presents  go. 

Stop  telling  your  age.  Forget  right  now 
how  old  you  are  and  never  allow  yourself  to 
think  of  it  again.  Refuse  to  talk  age  or  let 
others  talk  it  to  you. 

Don't  let  your  children  think  you  have  so 
little  to  do  in  your  own  life  that  you  can  be 
called  upon  at  any  time  to  act  as  nursemaid  to 
the  grand-children.  Get  some  engagements  of 
your  own.  Get  some  evening  engagements. 

Do  not  begin  to  divide  your  property.  Make 
a  will  if  you  have  any  property  and  then  for- 
get it. 

Don't  dress  in  dull  colors  and  things  be- 
speaking age.  The  reason  for  this  is  that  we 
are  all  powerfully  influenced  by  our  garments. 
We  always  tend  to  act  the  role  for  which  we 
are  dressed.  We  play  the  part  that  goes  with 
the  costume.  If  you  do  not  believe  it,  recall 
that  time  you  went  to  the  masquerade  as 

175 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
"Cap-and-Bells,"  "The  Spanish  Dancer,"  "Me- 
phisto"  or  "The  Colonial  Maiden."    Will  you 
ever  forget  how  you  felt  yourself  the  char- 
acter for  which  you  were  dressed? 

Remember  this  in  selecting  clothes:  I  do 
not  recommend  that  every  woman,  regardless 
of  her  age  or  complexion,  wear  cerise,  tur- 
quoise blue  or  paddy  green.  But  no  woman, 
however  old,  should  wear  dark  colors  exclu- 
sively. At  ninety  pastel  shades,  lavenders, 
palest  pinks,  yellows  and  white  are  more  be- 
coming than  any  somber  shade.  There  are 
the  colors  of  youth,  of  spring,  of  freshness. 
In  them  you  feel  younger,  and  when  you  feel 
younger  you  are  younger.  When  you  are  in 
drab  colors  you  feel  drab  and  act  drab. 

Take  pains  with  your  hair.  If  you  are  a 
man  don't  get  careless  about  the  crease  in 
your  trousers.  If  you  are  a  woman,  guard 
against  that  dumpy,  matronly  figure. 

Regardless  of  sex  inquire  into  your  own 
mind,  find  out  why  you  believe  as  you  do  on 
the  questions  of  the  day.  If  there  are  big, 
vital  questions  concerning  which  you  have  no 
opinion  whatever,  investigate  the  merits  and 
get  one. 

Take  an  interest  not  only  in  your  own  chil- 
dren, but  in  other  young  peoples'  children. 

176 


HOW  TO  STAY  YOUNG 

Cultivate  their  friendship.  This  does  not 
mean  being  kittenish, — it  means  sympathizing 
with  their  viewpoints,  hopes  and  ambitions. 

Attempt  new  things  with  the  determination 
that  you  are  going  to  win,  and  you  will  be  sur- 
prised to  see  how  easily  they  can  be  accom- 
plished. 

Start  new  projects  with  the  firm  conviction 
that  even  though  they  take  ten  or  twenty 
years  you  will  live  to  finish  them.  Never  say, 
"It  is  too  late  for  me  to  start  this  or  that." 
Never  say,  "If  I  could  have  done  that  five 
years  or  ten  years  ago  that  would  have  been 
different,  but  it  is  too  late  now." 

Stop  bemoaning  the  fact  that  you  can't  be- 
gin all  over  at  the  beginning.  You  can  do 
that  very  thing  if  you  will  start  today.  The 
past  years  will  merely  stand  you  in  hand  with 
their  harvests  of  experience. 

Refuse  to  look  for  or  expect  the  "break- 
downs" other  people  have.  Stop  turning  the 
microscope  of  your  mind  inward  whenever 
you  have  a  stitch  in  your  side,  a  twinge  in  a 
muscle  or  a  slight  dizziness. 

Never  think  of  yourself  as  old.  If  you  are 
unmarried  find  some  one  with  whom  you  can 
fall  in  love.  Whether  they  reciprocate  or  not, 
it  will  stir  up  your  liver  and  do  you  an  endless 

177 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
amount  of  good.     If  you  are  married,  fall  in 
love  with  your  own  partner  again. 

Give  yourselves  some  vacations.  Take 
some  trips,  if  only  in  the  Ford,  away  from 
everybody  who  knows  you,  your  past,  your 
age  and  your  ailments.  Make  new  friends  and 
cultivate  them. 

Try  to  live  in  harmony  with  all  Nature, 
from  the  elimination  of  meat  in  your  diet  to 
a  sympathy  with  the  first  meadow  lark  you 
hear  in  the  spring.  In  other  words,  keep  each 
of  those  26  trillions  of  cells  thoroughly  alive. 

Make  up  your  mind  to  keep  the  undertaker 
waiting  just  as  long  as  possible. 

Keep  abreast  of  the  movements  in  your 
community,  state  and  nation.  Know  some- 
thing of  what  is  going  on  everywhere,  from 
the  little  house  next  door  to  the  Russian  Revo- 
lutions. 

Get  out  of  yourself.  All  those  who  have 
lived  to  a  great  age  were  unselfish,  outgiving 
natures  who  were  interested  in  others. 

I  asked  Mary  C.  C.  Bradford,  when  she  was 
president  of  the  National  Education  Associa- 
tion, how  she  kept,  through  her  strenuous  pro- 
fessional activities,  her  buoyant  youthfulness. 
"By  keeping  alive  my  interest  in  all  big 

178 


HOW  TO  STAY  YOUNG 

things/'  she  said.  "What  one  thing  would 
you  say  was  most  important  to  one  who  de- 
sired to  perpetuate  his  youth?"  I  asked.  "To 
participate  in  as  many  worth-while  public  ac- 
tivities as  possible/'  she  answered. 

As  is  well  known,  any  machine  disinte- 
grates with  idleness.  The  old  saying  that 
"Rest  is  rust"  is  as  true  of  the  human  machine 
as  any  other. 

A  perpetual  renewing  process  is  always 
going  on  within  you.  Physical  and  mental 
activities  speed  up  this  process. 

There  are  four  mental  states  which  produce 
age, — the  serious  attitude,  the  depressed  atti- 
tude, the  superficial  attitude  and  the  excited 
attitude. 

Just  as  depression  slows  down  the  renew- 
ing processes  to  the  point  where  debris  piles 
up,  so  excitement  speeds  up  those  processes 
till  the  belts  fly  off  the  wheels. 

The  superficial  or  frivolous  attitude,  if  car- 
ried to  an  extreme,  means  that  no  matter  how 
long  you  live  you  are  never  going  to  grow  up. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  attitude  of  taking  life 
too  seriously  makes  you  "a  little  old  man"  or 
"a  little  old  woman"  from  childhood. 

The  cure  for  these  age-producing  attitudes 
•179 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
is  poise, — self-control.    Let  yourself  feel  deep- 
ly, determine  to  live  fully,  but  control  your- 
self.    Moderation  in  all  things  has  been  the 
rule  of  all  who  achieved  long  life. 

Treasure  your  vitality.  It  is  the  secret  of 
youth.  Avoid  everything  that  could  dissipate 
it, — over-eating,  under-nourishment,  idleness, 
too  hard  work,  extremes  of  any  kind. 

"If  youth  could  be  retained,  why  is  it/'  you 
ask,  "that  we  have  not  been  taught  these 
things  before?"  The  answer  is  simple.  We 
are  never  taught  the  most  vital  and  necessary 
truths  of  life.  We  are  taught  our  ABC's 
when  we  ought  to  be  finding  out  about  food 
values.  We  are  taught  algebra,  calculus  and 
other  higher  forms  of  mathematics  which  we 
never  use,  and  are  left  in  ignorance  of  the 
body's  effect  on  the  mind  and  the  mind's  effect 
on  the  body.  We  are  taught  languages  though 
we  may  never  get  out  of  our  own  home  town. 
We  are  taught  how  to  conjugate  verbs,  and 
to  differentiate  between  the  penult  and  the 
ante-penult,  but  are  kept  in  the  dark  as  to  the 
deepest  desires  of  our  natures, — the  sex  in- 
stinct, the  craving  for  a  mate,  and  love.  We 
are  taught  everything  except  what  we  need  to 
know.  Everything  that  is  impracticable,  theo- 
retical and  ethereal  is  put  into  the  curriculum. 

180 


HOW  TO  STAY  YOUNG 

The  things  we  need  to  know  to  save  us  from 
terrors,  tragedy,  shame  and  failure  are  left 
out. 

Every  human  being  longs  to  stay  young. 
Yet  the  simple,  certain  rules  by  which  he 
could  do  so  are  never  given  to  him. 

The  world  was  a  long  time  in  formulating 
these  rules  because  the  law  by  which  youth 
can  be  perpetuated  is  both  physical  and  meta- 
physical. 

Many  things  stay  young.     Why  not  you? 

Last  summer  I  saw  in  the  Redwood  forests 
of  California  thousands  of  trees  that  had  stood 
there  since  before  Christ, — trees  that  had  seen 
the  seasons  come  and  go  before  Nero  was 
born,  that  had  waved  their  branches  toward 
the  Golden  Gate  before  Cleopatra's  time. 

Is  it  unreasonable,  in  the  face  of  such  facts, 
to  anticipate  the  time  when  man,  the  highest 
thinking  creature,  shall  control  to  a  great  ex- 
tent the  length  of  his  own  existence? 

The  average  person  who  breathes  deeply  of 
fresh  air  gets  three  new  pairs  of  lungs  every 
year.  A  stomach  that  is  not  overloaded  nor 
abused  renews  itself  at  least  twice  a  year. 
This  is  true  of  every  other  abdominal  organ. 

The  skin  is  completely  renewed  every 
181 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

month,  the  heart,  brain  and  nervous  systems 
every  ninety  days. 

When  the  law  of  perpetual  renewal  is  not 
violated,  when  we  think  right,  expect  youth 
and  live  up  to  the  laws  of  health,  there  is  no 
knowing  to  what  length  man  may  not  perpet- 
uate his  youth. 

The  feeling  that  we  are  growing  old  comes 
from  the  belief  that  we  have  that  much  less 
time  in  which  to  live,  whereas  science  has 
proven  that  the  years  do  not  produce  age. 
The  consciousness  of  age  is  therefore  nothing 
more  or  less  than  a  consciousness  of  the  pass- 
ing  of  time. 

Conditions  which  have  produced  age  are 
abnormal  instead  of  natural,  and  can  only  be 
removed  by  the  development  of  a  new  con- 
sciousness. 

This  new  consciousness  must  be  based  upon 
the  realization  of  what  is  really  true  in  nature 
and  its  processes  in  the  human  system. 

The  most  important  of  these  are  the  proc- 
esses of  perpetual  renewal  and  of  present  cre- 
ation. The  first  rebuilds  the  entire  human  sys- 
tem during  every  ten  or  eleven  months,  thus 
keeping  the  body  physically  young.  The  sec- 
ond process  creates  in  the  system  all  those  con- 
ditions of  which  the  mind  is  conscious.  When 

182 


HOW  TO  STAY  YOUNG 
your  mind  is  conscious  of  this  second  process 
you  know  that  there  is  no  other  time  in  na- 
ture but  the  now.  To  live  absolutely  in  the 
now  is  to  be  conscious  only  of  what  is  true  in 
the  now,  and  it  is  true  that  every  cell  in  man 
is  momentarily  being  recreated. 

By  living  in  the  belief  that  we  are  growing 
older  every  year,  man  has  given  a  standing 
order  to  his  subconscious  to  keep  him  re- 
minded of  his  advancing  years,  to  make  him 
look  older  and  feel  older  every  year.  Every 
person  is  doing  this  through  the  force  of  habit 
— race  habit.  He  has  been  training  his  sub* 
conscious  mind  toward  producing  old  age. 

The  entire  universe  is  constantly  renewing 
itself.  Nothing  is  fixed,  nothing  is  the  same 
today  that  it  was  yesterday.  All  is  change, 
and  the  purpose  of  this  change  is  to  make  all 
things  new  at  all  times. 

Every  force  in  nature  is  working  to  counter- 
act old  age.  Every  movement  of  every  muscle 
has  youth  and  progress  in  view. 

You  must  train  your  mind  to  perpetually 
renew  itself.  This  may  be  promoted  by  train- 
ing every  process  of  thinking  to  form  new 
thought,  better  thought,  greater  thought  about 
everything. 

183 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

That  is  why  I  urge  you  to  keep  up  with 
the  times.  Today's  thought  on  any  subject 
should  be  new  as  compared  to  the  thought  of 
yesterday.  Every  idea  should  be  an  improve- 
ment upon  the  corresponding  idea  of  last 
week.  Every  conception  formed  by  youi 
mind  today  on  any  subject  should  be  finer, 
higher  and  better  than  the  previous  concep- 
tion. 

People  get  old  because  they  think  "old 
thoughts", — the  same  thoughts  they  have 
thought  for  years.  No  new  brain  cells  are 
vitalized  under  this  procedure.  No  new  asso- 
ciation centers  are  organized.  This  means 
brain-atrophy. 

Nature's  workings  do  not  produce  the  con- 
ditions of  age.  These  conditions  are  pro- 
duced by  man's  refusal  to  lend  himself  to  the 
renewing  processes  of  nature.  People  who 
have  passed  through  many  experiences  of 
many  kinds  consider  themselves  old  and  worn 
because  we  look  upon  experience  as  a  wear- 
ing process  instead  of  a  renewing  process. 

To  stay  young  train  your  mind  to  use  every 
experience,  that  is,  every  association  center, 
for  the  awakening  of  more  mental  power. 

When  we  have  trained  ourselves  to  think  of 
every  experience  as  a  developing,  enlarging 

184 


HOW  TO  STAY  YOUNG 

process  we  will  no  longer  grow  old  from  ex- 
perience, but  will  rather  capitalize  it  and  let 
it  teach  us  how  to  stay  young. 

Every  experience  tends  to  produce  an  im- 
pression on  the  mind.  Whether  that  impres- 
sion is  ageing  or  revivifying  depends  on  the 
mental  attitude  toward  the  experience  while 
the  impression  was  being  made.  Simply  to 
"pass  thru"  an  experience  is  to  impress  your- 
self with  the  idea  of  wear  and  tear,  but  to  look 
on  every  experience  as  the  gateway  to  larger 
and  larger  growth  will  tend  to  make  that  ex- 
perience, no  matter  how  intense  it  may  be, 
leave  development  instead  of  decay. 

You  must  not  allow  yourself  to  settle  into 
grooves.  Never  permit  yourself  a  final  con- 
clusion on  anything.  Always  keep  your  mind 
open.  No  one  has  any  right  to  final  conclu- 
sions; everything  is  comparative,  nothing  is 
absolute.  The  fixed  ideas  of  most  people  are 
merely  thoughts  gone  to  seed.  If  you  have 
prejudices  your  mind  is  ossified. 

To  stay  young  is  natural.  We  know  that 
because  everything  in  nature  is  being  con- 
stantly renewed,  and  is  therefore  always 
young. 

Every  condition  that  is  adverse  to  nature 
produces  age.  Whenever  your  body  or  mind 

185 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
are  not  working  with  nature  they  are  working 
against  it. 

From  the  time  a  child  first  hears  about  old 
age  his  mind  begins  to  work  against  nature, 
to  take  it  for  granted  that  he  will  look  old,  feel 
old  and  be  old  when  he  has  had  a  certain  num- 
ber of  birthdays. 

When  the  inter-dependence  of  body  and 
mind  are  better  understood,  when  we  have 
discovered  more  of  nature's  physical  and  men- 
tal laws,  the  average  life  of  the  individual  will 
be  several  times  what  it  is  today. 

In  order  that  you  may  prolong  your  own 
life  let  me  give  you  this  final  word:  Have  an 
absorbing  aim  in  life.  If  there  is  something 
you  want  to  do  begin  it  today  regardless  of 
how  many  years  have  elapsed  since  you  were 
born.  Expel  from  your  mind  the  notion  that 
there  is  a  deadline  at  fifty,  sixty,  or  even 
ninety.  Don't  give  up  your  professional  or 
financial  ambition  just  because  of  your  age. 
Read  the  biographies  of  successful  men  and 
women  and  see  how  many  of  them  made  their 
fame  and  fortune  after  middle  age. 

Mark  Twain  was  "dead  broke"  at  sixty  and 
owed  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars. In  the  sixteen  years  which  elapsed  after 
that  before  his  death,  he  not  only  repaid  every 

186 


HOW  TO  STAY  YOUNG 
penny  but  left  a  large  fortune.  Walt  Mason, 
who  writes  the  rippling  rhymes  you  read  every 
morning  at  breakfast,  says:  "At  forty-three  I 
was  a  jobless  misfit."  For  some  time  he  has 
been  receiving  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  a 
year  for  doing  the  thing  he  always  liked  to  do, 
but  which  he  had  never  before  tried  to  cap- 
italize. 

You  are  never  too  old  to  start  over.  If  you 
start  at  what  you  like  to  do,  it  alone  will  per- 
petuate your  youth.  Seneca  said,  "Man  does 
not  die,  he  kills  himself." 


187 


CHAPTER  V 

HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD 
MEMORY 

"The  difference  between  you  and  the  well- 
informed  man  you  envy  is  that  he  remembers 
things  and  you  don't." 

THORNDYKE. 

HE  subject  of  memory  is  fascinat- 
ing because  so  much  depends  upon 
it.  Without  memory  all  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  ages  would  be  worth- 
less. Without  your  own  memories  you  could 
not  know  who  you  are.  You  would  not 
know  your  name.  You  would  not  know  how 
to  find  your  way  home  or  recognize  your  own 
children.  You  would  not  know,  but  for  this 
faculty,  how  to  walk,  how  to  read,  how  to 
speak,  how  to  carry  food  to  your  mouth,  how 
to  dress  yourself.  Memory  is  the  thing  that 
determines  identity. 

Without  memory  you  would  be  helpless, 
ignorant,  hopeless.  The  success  of  each  hour 
depends  to  a  great  degree  on  profiting  by  pre- 
vious experience.  Without  memory  you 

188 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 

would  make  the  same  mistakes  indefinitely. 
Without  memory  you  could  never  learn  any- 
thing. But  for  memory  you  would  appear  to 
be  an  imbecile. 

The  importance  of  a  good  memory  can 
scarcely  be  exaggerated.  Socially,  the  man 
who  can  tell  a  good  story,  relate  the  details  of 
an  experience  and  give  illustrations,  is  always 
sought  after.  In  domestic  life  the  failure  to 
remember  birthdays  and  anniversaries  has  pre- 
cipitated more  than  one  divorce.  Every  house- 
wife knows  to  what  a  surprising  extent  suc- 
cessful home-making  depends  on  remembering 
the  little  things  that  must  be  looked  after.  In 
business,  references,  dates,  statistics,  facts, 
conversations  and  legal  points,  must  be  stored 
in  the  memory  if  a  man  would  succeed.  He 
must  keep  his  appointments.  He  must  know 
not  only  his  own  business  but  the  business  of 
his  competitor,  and  remember  all  manner  of 
details  in  the  running  of  his  own  business.  In 
the  professions  it  is  equally  important.  Phy- 
sicians, dentists,  lawyers,  engineers,  lecturers 
and  others,  succeed  largely  in  proportion  to 
their  ability  to  remember. 

What  do  we  mean  by  memory?  We  mean 
a  mental  picture.  These  mental  pictures  hang- 
ing in  the  gallery  of  your  mind  are  all  that 

189 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
connect  you  with  the  person  you  were  yester- 
day.    The  things  you  remember  from  today 
are  all  that  can  identify  you  with  the  person 
you  will  be  tomorrow. 

Memory  may  be  likened  to  a  preserving 
fluid  which  correlates  the  various  elements  of 
the  personality  and  keeps  them  aware  of  each 
other.  But  for  the  memories  you  have  of 
yourself  yesterday  you  might  have  been  a 
piece  of  furniture,  a  horse  or  a  street  car. 

It  is  this  cord  called  memory  which  ties  to- 
gether the  billions  of  thoughts  and  experiences 
of  your  past  and  organizes  them  into  groups 
called  association  centers.  Around  each  event 
of  your  life  it  has  grouped  the  various  inci- 
dents related  to  it;  around  the  most  important 
ones  it  has  built  memories  of  everything  and 
everybody  who  was  connected  with  it  at  the 
time.  With  such  perfection  has  the  intricate 
system  been  constructed  that  the  mention  of 
one  of  the  smallest  elements  will  bring  to  mind 
the  central  figure.  Step  by  step  the  wires  of 
memory's  marvelous  telegraph  system  trace 
back  in  the  order  in  which  the  events  oc- 
curred, and  in  an  instant  they  are  at  the 
source.  Whenever  you  recall  anything,  this 
has  happened  in  your  mind. 

190 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 
The  problem  in  memory  training  is  to  learn 
how  to  start  the  associations  which  will  awak- 
en the  desired  memories. 

You  see  the  truth  of  this  a  dozen  times  a 
day.  The  sight  of  so  insignificant  a  thing  as 
a  pin  may  suddenly  bring  back  to  you  the 
recollection  of  where  you  placed  an  impor- 
tant parcel  weeks  ago.  Because  it  all  hap- 
pens so  quickly,  you  imagine  your  mind 
jumped  from  the  pin  to  the  parcel  in  one  leap, 
but  if  you  could  slow  down  the  wheels  of 
your  mental  machinery  as  the  movie  man 
slows  down  the  picture  when  they  put  to- 
gether again  the  house  that  has  been  blown 
up,  you  would  see  that  your  mind  took  dozens 
of  logical  steps  back  over  the  ground.  The 
pin  subconsciously  reminded  you  of  some- 
thing which  in  its  turn  reminded  you  of  other 
things,  and  these  reminded  you  of  others,  and 
so  on,  back  to  the  parcel.  It  almost  seems  in 
such  cases  that  something  breaks  through  the 
obstruction,  and  from  there  on  the  path  is 
easy. 

Most  speakers  declare  they  select  a  word  as 
a  key  to  whole  paragraphs  and  pages.  By 
keeping  this  key  word  in  mind  everything  else 
follows  in  a  procession. 

191 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

Trying  to  recall  by  the  force  of  will  is  never 
the  best  method.  When  you  have  need  for 
remembering  something,  relax  the  body  and 
mind  as  completely  as  possible.  Avoid  con- 
centrating on  anything.  Not  always,  but  in 
most  instances,  it  will  find  the  scent  and  fol- 
low it  back  to  the  thing  you  want. 

Going  back  to  the  place  where  you  last  re- 
member having  a  thing  will  often  start  the 
train  of  memories  of  what  you  did  with  it 
from  that  point  onward. 

It  is  now  known  that  the  best  way  to  help 
a  witness  remember  accurately  is  to  take  him 
back  where  the  events  transpired.  People  who 
in  the  court  room  remember  nothing,  sud- 
denly remember  all  the  details  when  they  re- 
turn to  the  spot. 

The  notion  that  to  have  at  one's  tongue's 
end  masses  of  dates,  numbers,  statistics  and 
facts  in  order  to  prove  his  intelligence  is  not 
only  erroneous  but  dangerous.  We  all  have 
today  many  more  of  these  than  we  have  any 
need  for. 

The  aim  of  this  lesson,  therefore,  is  not  to 
teach  you  how  to  become  a  human  encyclo- 
paedia, but  to  give  you  the  rules  whereby  you 
may  cultivate  the  kind  of  memory  which  will 
be  of  practical  aid  to  you  in  your  life. 

192 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 

If  you  could  learn  and  remember  all  the 
facts  of  history,  science,  art, — everything  that 
has  ever  occurred  since  the  beginning  of  time, 
it  would  be  of  no  service  to  you  save  as  you 
applied  it  to  your  own  problems.  No  amount 
of  information  is  valuable  to  you  unless  it 
enters  into  your  thinking,  unless  it  can  be  used 
in  the  form  of  judgments  and  conclusions. 

Therefore,  the  first  rule  I  have  for  you  is 
this:  Do  not  try  to  remember  everything. 

Never  try  to  remember  anything  which  you 
cannot  use  or  which  you  can  see  no  oppor- 
tunity for  using  in  the  future. 

You  have  only  a  certain  amount  of  mental 
energy.  When  this  is  being  centered  on  re- 
membering unnecessary  things,  you  do  not 
have  as  good  a  memory  for  the  things  which 
are  important  to  you.  The  first  step  in  gain- 
ing a  good  memory  is  to  gain  a  good  "for- 
getter." 

Deliberately  refuse  to  open  your  conscious- 
ness to  irrelevant,  isolated  or  unessential 
things.  When  they  come  into  your  life  in 
spite  of  this,  deliberately  forget  them.  Don't 
allow  them  to  stay  and  clutter  up  your  mind. 

The  average  mind  is  like  a  huge  attic,  filled 
with  the  debris  of  the  past,  jammed  with 

193 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
broken  furniture,  the  cracked  dishes,  the  tat- 
tered accessories  of  the  years  behind  us.  In- 
stead of  building  a  bonfire  of  them,  eliminat- 
ing them  from  our  lives,  we  strain  to  retain 
them,  and  when  some  valueless  remnant  is 
missing, — if  you  fail  to  recall  a  date  or  a  name 
from  those  dead  years, — you  consider  your 
memory  is  failing. 

Make  up  your  mind  that  you  are  not  going 
to  allow  yourself  to  remember  the  things 
which  can  do  you  no  good;  that  you  are  go- 
ing to  reserve  all  of  your  mental  capacity  for 
storing  away  the  information,  facts  and  data 
that  are  necessary  to  your  individual  needs 
and  to  your  particular  line  of  work. 

Life  is  short.  To  make  yours  a  success  you 
have  got  to  be  a  specialist.  But  concentrating 
your  actions  on  a  certain  specialty  will  never 
make  an  expert  of  you,  unless  you  also  con- 
centrate your  thoughts  on  it. 

I  do  not  mean  that  you  should  become  nar- 
now.  But  this  will  not  make  you  narrow. 
The  ramifications,  highways  and  byways  of 
knowledge,  into  which  every  specialty  will 
lead  you,  will  preclude  narrowness. 

But  I  want  you  to  organize  your  life.  To 
do  that  you  must  make  every  mental  faculty 

work  toward  your  big  aim  in  life. 

194 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 

One  of  the  most  important  is  memory. 
Your  memory  is  the  servant  that  must  gather 
together  all  ingredients  of  your  knowledge, 
training  and  education  on  your  specialty.  If 
she  spends  a  large  percentage  of  her  time 
gathering  data  on  matters  you  will  never  use, 
you  will  not  go  as  far  in  your  line  as  if  you 
kept  her  at  work  on  the  one  big  subject. 

The  man  who  wishes  to  become  a  success- 
ful lawyer  does  not  spend  half  his  time  in  a 
medical  school.  To  be  sure,  he  finds  it  neces- 
sary sometimes  to  know  something  about  the 
science  of  medicine,  but  when  that  time  comes 
he  studies  only  those  phases  of  therapeutics 
which  he  needs  in  his  law  practice.  He  does 
not  waste  time  delving  into  the  whole  science. 
Whether  you  have  such  a  profession  in  view 
or  not,  you  have  a  specialty.  That  specialty 
is  to  make  a  success  of  your  life. 

To  make  a  success  of  your  life  your  mind 
must  lay  successful  plans.  It  cannot  do  this 
if  you  make  of  it  merely  a  card  index  system, 
if  you  reduce  it  to  the  position  of  a  file  clerk. 

Make  up  your  mind  what  you  are  going  to 
do  with  the  years  that  are  ahead  of  you,  then 
make  everything  in  your  life,  directly  or  in- 
directly, serve  that  one  aim.  Think  of  your 
life  as  a  wheel  and  make  everything  build  to- 

195 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

ward  your  one  aim  as  the  spokes  run  into  the 
hub. 

One  of  the  first  essentials  in  this  direction 
is  the  right  kind  of  reading.  Never,  except  for 
relaxation,  devote  your  precious  time  and 
your  priceless  brain  cells  to  reading  what  you 
cannot  use. 

Acquire  the  best  books  and  magazines  on 
your  chosen  specialty.  Keep  your  eyes  open 
as  you  pass  news  stands  for  special  articles  in 
other  magazines. 

Having  done  this,  learn  the  second  step, — 
how  to  get  everything  important  out  of  an 
article,  a  chapter  or  a  book  in  the  shortest 
time.  If  you  are  thoroughly  interested  in  this 
specialty  of  yours  you  will  soon  develop  a  sur- 
prising alertness  for  relevant  material.  Your 
eye  will  soon  be  able  to  gather  the  kernel  from 
a  page  at  a  glance.  For  every  grain  of  wheat 
there  is  much  chaff.  Learn  to  lift  that  grain 
of  wheat  the  instant  you  glance  at  a  page. 

While  we  are  on  the  subject  of  Interest,  I 
will  give  you  the  four  stages,  or  ancestors,  of 
Memory.     They  are: 
Desire 
Interest 
Attention 
Memory 

196 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 
What  we  truly  desire,  we  are  interested  in. 
We  are  interested  in  everything  concerning  it. 
Desire,  therefore,  is  the  mother  of  Interest; 
Interest  is  the  mother  of  Attention,  for  we 
give  our  attention  to  that  in  which  we  are  in- 
terested. Attention  is  the  secret  of  Memory. 
You  remember  the  things  to  which  you  give 
concentrated  attention.  The  lack  of  attention  , 
is  responsible  for  what  you  call  your  "poor 
memory." 

But  it  is  not  that  you  have  forgotten.  You 
cannot  forget  a  thing  you  never  knew.  If 
you  fail  to  give  it  your  attention  you  never 
know  it. 

I  know  a  woman  in  an  unusual  profession. 
Owing  to  the  fact  that  it  is  a  new  profession. 
little  is  printed  concerning  it.  But  this  woman 
manages  to  find  all  the  articles,  stories  and 
pamphlets  on  that  subject.  She  does  not  do 
this  by  giving  all  of  her  time  to  searching  for 
them.  She  is  busy  12  hours  of  every  24  in 
the  actual  performance  of  her  profession,  but 
so  intense  is  her  interest  in  it  that  she  spies 
titles  and  headings  instantaneously  as  she 
dashes  past  news  stands,  the  windows  of  book 
stores  or  any  other  places.  She  has  trained  her 
interest  upon  that  one  subject  for  so  long  that 

197 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
it  ferrets  out  and  draws  to  her  masses  of  in- 
formation, statistics,  etc. 

Not  only  her  eyes,  but  her  ears,  have  been 
trained  as  under-servants  to  Interest.  She 
may  be  sitting  in  the  last  row  of  a  great  audi- 
ence, but  if  the  speaker  happens  to  make  even 
the  slightest  mention,  in  the  most  indirect 
way,  of  anything  pertaining  to  her  work,  she 
catches  every  word, — the  author's  name,  the 
subject  of  the  article  and  everything  else 
which  the  speaker  refers  to  in  connection  with 
it 

This  woman  makes  a  practice  of  keeping 
her  mind  clear  for  the  things  necessary  to  her 
progress  as  the  head  of  her  profession.  She 
does  not  fill  her  mental  house  with  neighbors, 
friends,  distant  relatives  and  skeletons.  She 
keeps  plenty  of  spare  rooms  ready  for  visit- 
ors,— the  new  thoughts  and  ideas  of  her  pro- 
fession, which  may  happen  along.  Tune  your 
attention  to  catch  the  things  that  are  vital  to 
you. 

Self-interest  is  the  mother  of  Desire.  You 
always  remember  best  that  which  is  to  your 
interest.  You  can  in  fact  teach  yourself  al- 
most anything  if  it  is  of  sufficient  importance 
in  your  scheme  of  things.  This  was  amus- 

198 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 

ingly  illustrated  to  me  in  Chicago  a  few  years 
ago. 

A  boy  stood  at  the  entrance  of  a  huge  din- 
ing room  and  took  every  man's  hat.  He  gave 
no  checks  and  employed  nothing  to  aid  him 
in  remembering  to  which  man  each  hat  be- 
longed. The  men  did  not  come  out  in  the 
order  in  which  they  went  in.  They  wandered 
out  by  ones  and  twos  during  the  course  of  the 
next  two  hours.  Though  there  were  over  200 
hats  he  did  not  make  one  mistake.  Every  man 
was  given  his  own  hat. 

I  asked  him  how  he  did  it.  He  told  me  that 
he  did  not  have  more  than  an  average  memory 
when  he  became  a  hat  boy.  "But,"  he  said, 
"I  tried  trusting  to  my  memory  just  to  see 
what  I  could  do.  It's  lonesome  standing 
around  here  with  nothing  to  do  but  take  hats. 
After  a  little  while  I  told  the  other  boys  what 
I  could  do.  They  made  bets  with  me  that  I 
couldn't.  I  had  to  win  the  bets  and  after  that 
I  began  to  have  a  reputation  as  'the  boy  with 
the  wonderful  memory.'  To  live  up  to  it  I 
had  to  improve  my  memory,  and  when  I  casu- 
ally mentioned  to  a  man  the  date  on  which  he 
was  here  last,  he  was  flattered  and  gave  me  a 
larger  tip.  The  more  I  remember  the  more  I 
make." 

199 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

This  boy's  case  is  a  simple  illustration  of 
how  self-interest  is  back  of  memory.  In  the 
case  of  the  woman  it  is  more  complex  but 
equally  true. 

Freud,  whose  writings  have  advanced  the 
science  of  the  subconscious  during  the  past 
few  years,  says,  in  his  "Psychopathology  of 
Everyday  Life/'  page  45:  "I  observed  that 
of  a  great  number  of  professional  calls  I  never 
forgot  any  that  I  was  to  make  on  colleagues." 
Our  interest  in  friends  and  contemporaries  is 
always  greater  than  that  in  strangers.  It  is 
also  closely  linked  with  self-interest. 

Dr.  Ernest  Jones  maintains  that  we  all  have 
a  tendency  to  forget  whatever  brings  unpleas- 
ant associations.  "In  my  own  life/'  he  de- 
clared, "I  have  on  numerous  occasions  forgot- 
ten appointments  with  patients  who  were  very 
tedious  and  uninteresting." 

If  you  doubt  that  interest  produces  atten- 
tion and  attention  produces  memory,  notice 
with  what  vividness  you  recall  the  dress,  the 
colors  and  every  detail  worn  by  one  of  the 
opposite  sex  after  you  have  become  interested 
in  them.  Note  also  your  inability  to  remem- 
ber what  he  or  she  wore  on  the  occasions  be- 
fore your  interest  was  aroused. 

200 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 

You  give  your  attention  to  that  in  which 
you  are  truly  interested.  You  will  remember 
that  to  which  you  have  been  induced  to  give 
concentration. 

Edgar  James  Swift  in  his  "Psychology  and 
the  Day's  Work,"  relates  a  story  told  by  Al 
Jennings,  about  how  he  forced  a  district  attor- 
ney to  fix  his  attention  upon  a  wrong  date  in 
order  to  establish  an  alibi  for  one  of  his 
crimes. 

Jennings  and  his  gang  robbed  a  train  on 
October  1.  The  next  day,  October  2,  Jen- 
nings walked  into  the  office  of  the  district  at- 
torney and  said:  '  'I've  been  hearing  a  lot  of 
fool  talk  about  my  robbing  trains  and  going 
on  the  dodge.  I'm  tired  of  it.  I  intend  to  sur- 
render, face  the  music,  and  clear  myself.  I've 
a  few  things  to  settle  up  first,  then  I'm  coming 
in.  This  is  October  1st;  two  weeks  from  to- 
day, October  15th,  I'll  return.  Have  your 
officers  ready.'  And  as  I  left  his  office  I  re- 
peated: 

"  'Make  a  note  of  it— this  is  October  1st, 
and  I'm  coming  back  on  the  15th.'  " 

'  'According  to  expectations,  Pittman  was 
so  excited  at  seeing  me  and  hearing  of  my  in- 
tentions that  the  date  impressed  itself  on  his 

201 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

mind  only  as  an  inconsequential  detail.  He 
never  thought  to  look  it  up  at  the  time,  and 
when  I  had  use  for  him  it  was  fixed  in  his 
mind — wrong. 

"Going  to  the  saloon  of  Ike  Renfrew,  I  got 
him  to  send  for  Bob  Motley,  the  sheriff,  my 
father,  and  my  brother  John.  Motley  was  my 
friend;  I  knew  he  wouldn't  arrest  me  without 
a  warrant.  To  them  I  talked  just  as  I  had  to 
Pitt  man,  getting  the  false  date — October  1st 
— into  their  minds.  No  one  thought  to  verify 
my  statement  of  the  date.  This  made  a  per- 
fect alibi,  for  the  robbery  had  occurred  eighty 
miles  away  on  noon  of  October  1st.' ' 

Some  scientists  maintain  that  nothing  we 
have  ever  known,  heard,  read  or  experienced 
ever  passes  entirely  out  of  the  mind.  They 
maintain  that  everything  you  see  or  hear  is 
filed  away  in  the  storehouse  of  the  subcon- 
scious. 

Swift  relates  the  three  following  cases, 
which  go  far  to  substantiate  this  theory: 

"A  young  woman  of  four  or  five  and 
twenty,  who  could  neither  read  nor  write,  was 
seized  with  a  nervous  fever,  during  which,  ac- 
cording to  the  statements  of  all  the  priests  and 
monks  of  the  neighborhood,  she  became  pos- 
sessed, and,  as  it  appeared,  by  a  very  learned 

202 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 

devil.  She  continued  incessantly  talking  Lat- 
in, Greek,  and  Hebrew,  in  very  pompous 
tones  and  with  most  distinct  enunciation  .  .  . 

The  case  had  attracted  the  particular  atten- 
tion of  a  young  physician,  and  by  his  state- 
ment many  eminent  physiologists  and  psychol- 
ogists had  visited  the  town  and  made  cross- 
examinations.  Sheets  full  of  her  ravings  were 
taken  down  from  her  own  mouth,  and  were 
found  to  consist  of  sentences,  coherent  and 
intelligible  each  for  itself,  but  with  little  or 
no  connection  with  each  other.  Of  the  He- 
brew, a  small  portion  only  could  be  traced  to 
the  Bible;  the  remainder  seemed  to  be  in  the 
Rabbinical  dialect. 

"All  trick  or  conspiracy  was  out  of  the 
question.  Not  only  had  the  young  woman 
ever  been  a  harmless,  simple  creature,  but  she 
was  evidently  laboring  under  a  nervous 
fever.  .  .  . 

"The  young  physician  determined  to  trace 
her  past  life  step  by  step.  .  .  .  He,  at  length 
succeeded  in  discovering  the  place  where  her 
parents  had  lived  .  .  .  and  learned  from  an 
uncle  that  the  patient  had  been  charitably 
taken  by  an  old  Protestant  pastor  at  nine  years 
of  age  and  had  remained  with  him  some 
years.  .  .  . 

203 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
"Anxious  inquiries  were  then,  of  course, 
made  concerning  the  pastor's  habits;  and  the 
solution  of  the  phenomenon  was  soon  ob- 
tained. For  it  appeared  that  it  had  been  the 
old  man's  custom  for  years  to  walk  up  and 
down  a  passage  of  his  house  into  which  the 
kitchen  opened,  and  to  read  to  himself  with 
a  loud  voice  out  of  his  favorite  books  .  .  . 

"Among  the  books  were  found  a  collection 
of  Rabbinical  writings,  together  with  several 
of  the  Greek  and  Latin  fathers;  and  the  phy- 
sician succeeded  in  identifying  so  many  pas- 
sages with  those  taken  down  at  the  young 
woman's  bedside,  that  no  doubt  could  remain 
in  any  rational  mind  concerning  the  true 
origin  of  the  impressions  made  on  her  ner- 
vous system." 

"One  of  the  amazing  features  of  this  case, 
if  correctly  reported,  is  that  the  woman  could 
not  have  understood  any  of  the  sentences 
which  she  heard  and  afterward  repeated." 

Your  subconscious  is  the  treasure  vault  of 
memory.  In  it  is  doubtless  stored  every  ex- 
perience thru  which  you  have  ever  passed. 
But  you  have  lost  the  combination. 

In  this  lesson  I  am  going  to  teach  you  that 
combination.  A  good  memory  is  yours  for 

204 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 
the  making,  but  no  one  can  make  it  for  you. 
I  shall  show  you  how;  then  you  must  do  it 
yourself. 

The  "flash  of  inspiration"  as  the  lawyer 
calls  the  brilliant  thought  that  wins  him  his 
case,  does  not  come  from  something  outside 
himself.  It  rises  to  the  surface  from  the 
depths  of  his  subconscious  ocean. 

Swift  goes  on  to  say:  "There  are  various 
ways  in  which  lost'  memories  may  disclose 
themselves.  Not  infrequently  those  accus- 
tomed to  follow  trails  through  dense  woods 
are  unable  to  recall  the  paths  or  direction  that 
they  took  to  reach  their  destination.  Yet, 
several  years  later,  when  they  again  set  out 
upon  the  same  trip,  the  journey  is  a  contin- 
uous succession  of  familiar  objects  and  vistas. 
Here  half  a  dozen  trails  cross;  but  a  stone  or 
tree,  or  some  other  familiar  object,  indicates 
the  route,  though  so  far  as  the  traveller  is 
aware  he  gave  no  unusual  attention  to  these 
landmarks  when  he  first  took  the  trip.  But 
more  striking  instances  are  sometimes  ob- 
served. 

"William  B.  Carpenter  has  given  an  inter- 
esting case  which  shows  how  experiences  of 
childhood  may  be  impressed  and  conserved 
though  the  'memory'  reveals  nothing  of  them. 

205 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

Later,  when  a  part  of  the  same  childhood's 
experience  is  again  witnessed,  the  entire  scene, 
in  all  its  details,  is  reproduced  as  a  vision. 

"  'Several  years  ago,'  says  Carpenter,  'The 
Reverend  S.  Hansard,  now  rector  of  Bethnal 
Green,  was  doing  clerical  duty  for  a  time  at 
Hurstmonceaux,  in  Sussex;  and  while  there 
he  one  day  went  over  with  a  party  of  friends 
to  Pevensey  Castle,  which  he  did  not  remem- 
ber ever  to  have  previously  visited.  As  he 
approached  the  gateway  he  became  conscious 
of  a  very  vivid  impression  of  having  seen  it 
before;  and  he  'seemed  to  himself  to  see' 
not  only  the  gateway  itself,  but  the  donkeys 
beneath  the  arch,  and  people  on  the  top  of 
it. 

His  conviction  that  he  must  have  visited 
the  castle  on  some  former  occasion — although 
he  had  neither  the  slightest  remembrance  of 
such  a  visit  nor  any  knowledge  of  having 
been  in  the  neighborhood  before  going  to 
Hurstmonceaux — made  him  inquire  from  his 
mother  whether  she  could  throw  any  light  on 
the  matter. 

She  at  once  informed  him  that,  being  in 
that  part  of  the  country  when  he  was  about 
eighteen  months  old,  she  had  gone  over  with 
a  large  party,  and  had  taken  him  in  the  pan- 

206 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 

nier  of  a  donkey;  that  the  elders  of  the  party 
having  brought  lunch  with  them  had  eaten  it 
on  the  roof  of  the  gateway,  where  they  would 
have  been  seen  from  below,  while  he  had  been 
left  on  the  ground  with  the  attendants  and 
donkeys.'  " 

In  all  courts  much  depends  on  the  testi- 
mony of  witnesses.  Many  a  man  has  been 
hanged  on  the  testimony  of  another  whose 
memory  was  inaccurate.  Numberless  men 
and  women  have  been  disgraced  for  life  by 
the  stories  of  those  who  thought  they  were 
telling  the  truth,  but  whose  memories  were 
not  good.  For  the  best  illustration  of  this  in 
psychological  literature,  it  is  necessary  to  turn 
again  to  Swift.  He  says: 

"A  few  years  ago  the  writer's  attention 
was  directed  to  a  rather  remarkable  criminal 
trial.  In  1871  Alexander  Jester  started  east 
from  Kansas  in  a  light  spring  wagon  with 
canvas  top,  drawn  by  two  small  pony  horses. 
While  fording  a  stream  near  Emporia,  as  the 
horses  were  drinking,  he  fell  into  conversa- 
tion with  Gilbert  Gates,  a  young  man  who 
was  returning  from  homesteading  land  in 
Kansas.  Young  Gates  was  travelling  in  what 
was  then  known  as  a  prairie-schooner  drawn 
by  a  pair  of  heavy  horses.  Jester  had  three 

207 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
young  deer  in  his  wagon,  and  Gates  a  buffalo 
calf.  They  decided  to  travel  together  and  give 
exhibitions  with  their  animals  to  meet  ex- 
penses. When  they  reached  Paris,  Missouri, 
Gates  had  disappeared. 

"Jester's  explanation,  at  the  preliminary 
hearing,  was  that  he  became  homesick  and 
sold  his  outfit  to  him  that  he  might  hasten 
home  by  rail. 

"Jester  was  seen  leaving  Paris  driving 
Gates'  heavy  team  with  his  own  lighter  team 
tied  behind.  Later  he  sold  the  heavy  horses 
and  various  other  articles  known  to  have  be- 
longed to  Gates,  but  which  he  claimed  were 
purchased. 

"It  is  not  the  purpose  of  the  writer  to  decide 
the  merits  of  the  case,  but  rather  to  call  atten- 
tion to  certain  exceedingly  interesting  psycho- 
logical features. 

"Jester  was  soon  arrested  but  escaped,  and 
was  not  brought  to  trial  until  1901.  Thirty 
years  had  therefore  passed  since  the  events 
concerning  which  witnesses  were  called  upon 
to  testify.  Besides,  there  was  a  blinding 
snow-storm  at  the  time  when  the  crime  was 
supposed  to  have  been  committed;  and,  of 
course,  this  would  have  interfered  with  ac- 
curate observation.  Further,  when  the  wit- 

208 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 

nesses  'saw'  the  things  which  they  related 
they  were  not  aware  that  a  crime  had  been 
committed. 

"Two  preliminary  questions  thus  suggest 
themselves:  First,  would  any  one  note,  as 
carefully  as  the  subsequent  testimony  indi- 
cated, the  peculiarities  of  a  chance  traveller 
on  the  road,  especially  in  a  blinding  snow- 
storm, and  at  a  time  when  no  reason  existed, 
so  far  as  known,  for  unusual  observation? 
Second,  would  observers,  under  these  circum- 
stances, be  likely  to  remember,  after  a  lapse 
of  thirty  years,  the  minute  details  of  what 
they  had  seen?  The  incidents  were  of  the 
unimportant,  uninteresting  sort  that  were  fre- 
quently experienced  at  that  time.  Even  the 
prairie-schooner  could  hardly  have  been  ex- 
ceptional enough  to  attract  special  attention, 
since,  as  will  be  seen  later,  one  of  the  wit- 
nesses was  taking  his  wedding-trip  on  horse- 
back, with  his  wife  behind  him  on  the  same 
horse.  But  let  us  turn  to  the  testimony. 

"When  the  trial  was  held,  two  women  de- 
scribed the  size  and  color  of  all  the  horses, 
the  harness  of  the  heavy  team,  the  figure  and 
appearance  of  Jester — height,  a  little  over  six 
feet,  weight  about  one  hundred  and  eighty 

209 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
pounds,  with  a  hook-nose,  gray  eyes,  power- 
ful physique,  and  large  hands. 

"They  further  testified  that,  looking  into 
the  first  wagon  as  it  approached,  they  saw 
lying  in  the  bottom  the  outlines  of  a  human 
form  with  a  buffalo-robe  thrown  over  it;  and 
they  gave  this  testimony  confidently,  thirty 
years  after  the  crime,  notwithstanding  they 
were  twelve  and  fourteen  years  of  age,  re- 
spectively, when  the  events  transpired,  and 
though  they  were  riding  at  a  canter  in  the 
face  of  a  heavy  snow-storm,  with  veils  tied 
over  their  faces,  and  the  horses  which  they 
met  were  traveling  at  a  fast  trot  when  they 
passed  in  the  storm. 

"A  farmer  swore  that  the  buffalo-robe  was 
covered  with  blood,  and  still  another  witness 
that,  while  helping  Jester  start  his  wagon,  the 
canvas  blew  back  and  he  saw  the  body  of  a 
man  with  his  throat  cut.  The  description  of 
the  body  was  that  of  young  Gates. 

"A  man  who  had  just  been  married,  and 
was  taking  his  wife  behind  him  on  his  horse  to 
their  new  home,  described  the  horses  attached 
to  each  wagon,  the  wagons,  and  the  dog;  and 
this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  his  own  horse 
was  going  at  the  'single  foot'  gait,  that  Jes- 
ter's horses  were  trotting  past,  that  it  was 

210 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 
snowing  hard,  and  that,  being  on  his  honey- 
moon,   other    thoughts    and    interests    would 
seem  to  be  occupying  his  mind. 

"A  man  of  thirty-six,  who  consequently  was 
six  years  of  age  at  the  time  of  the  crime,  tes- 
tified that  later,  during  the  thaw  and  heavy 
rains  of  spring,  he  and  his  father  saw  the  body 
of  a  young  man  of  eighteen  or  twenty  years 
of  age  floating  down  the  stream.  He  de- 
scribed the  color  of  his  hair  and  complexion, 
and  said  that  he  had  on  a  blue-checked  shirt 
and  blue  overalls.  His  description  of  the  shirt 
agreed  with  that  of  Mrs.  Gates  of  a  shirt 
which  she  had  made  for  her  son. 

"It  is  interesting  to  note,  in  this  connection, 
that  neither  the  father  of  the  six-year-old  boy 
nor  the  girls  who  saw  the  outlines  of  a  human 
form  in  the  wagon,  nor  the  man  who  helped 
start  Jester  off,  said  anything  about  their  ob- 
servations until  Gates'  disappearance  and 
Jester's  arrest  had  been  published. 

"It  is  quite  evident  that,  whatever  the 
merits  of  the  case,  the  testimony  of  these 
witnesses,  after  a  lapse  of  thirty  years,  was 
amazingly  exact.  Yet  it  would  be  unfair  to 
assume  that  they  were  dishonest.  All  of 
those  from  whose  testimony  we  have  quoted 

211 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
were  people  of  good  standing  in  the  com- 
munity. They  could  be  relied  upon  both  in 
word  and  deed.  The  attorney  for  the  defense, 
in  the  case  speaks  in  the  highest  terms  of  these 
witnesses.  They  were  among  the  best  peo- 
ple of  Monroe  County/  he  says.  They  want- 
ed to  be  truthful,  and  they  were  very  friendly 
to  me,  entertaining  me  over  night  when  I  was 
looking  up  evidence  preparatory  to  the  trial/ 
"What  then  was  the  explanation  of  their 
remarkable  exactness,  even  in  the  smallest 
and  in  some  instances  least  noticeable  and 
least  interesting  details?  The  key  to  the  mys- 
tery lies  in  the  way  in  which  the  case  was 
worked  up,  in  the  publicity  that  it  received, 
and  in  human  psychology. 

"After  Jester's  final  arrest,  Pinkerton  de- 
tectives were  employed  and  seven  or  eight 
leading  criminal  lawyers  of  Missouri  and  Chi- 
cago were  engaged  to  assist  the  prosecution. 
The  detectives,  as  they  secured  one  fact  after 
another,  culminated  the  information  by  sug- 
gestive questions  and  statements  to  those  with 
whom  they  conversed.  When,  for  example,  a 
prospective  witness  said  that  there  was  a  buf- 
falo-robe in  the  wagon  the  detectives  would 
ask  if  it  covered  the  outlines  of  a  human  form. 

212 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 
The  man  would  think  it  likely,  and  soon  that 
it  did. 

"Of  course  the  case  was  featured  in  the 
county  newspapers.  It  was  a  first-class  news 
story.  Pictures  were  published,  pictures  of 
Jester  and  Gates,  pictures  of  the  horses  and 
wagons,  pictures  of  the  dog,  and  pictures  of 
scenes  in  the  chain  of  events  leading  to  the 
alleged  crime.  The  pictures  were  based  on 
what  witnesses  said  they  saw,  and  what  the 
detectives  said  they  must  have  seen,  and  no 
reportorial  imagination  whatever  was  lacking. 
The  clothing  of  Gates  was  described,  the  ar- 
ticles he  had  with  him  enumerated,  the  facts  to 
which  certain  witnesses  would  swear  were 
told  to  other  witnesses  and  reported  in  the 
newspapers.  Indeed,  all  the  events  of  the 
crime  as  it  was  conceived  by  witnesses,  re- 
porters, and  detectives  were  portrayed  and 
described  with  much  the  effect  of  a  moving- 
picture  representation,  until  fact  and  fiction 
were  indistinguishable. 

"It  is  a  well-known  principle  of  psychology 
that  if  you  tell  a  man  something  often  enough 
he  finally  accepts  it;  and  as  he  continually 
repeats  it,  even  as  a  possible  fact,  it  ends  by 
becoming  firmly  fixed.  Then  he  believes  that 
he  saw  or  heard  it. 

213 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
"We  must  not  forget  that  all  this  happened 
thirty  years  after  the  events.  The  undetected 
vagueness  of  memory-details  of  the  .witnesses 
furnished  a  fertile  soil  for  the  growth  of  imag- 
inary pictures.  The  attempt  to  see  faces  in 
the  moon  is  comparable  to  their  experience. 
With  a  dim  outline,  or  a  sketch  with  several 
possibilities,  there  is  always  a  strong  tendency 
to  fill  in  the  outlines,  usually  with  what  is  in 
one's  mind.  As  an  illustration,  ask  a  group 
of  persons  to  indicate  the  kind  of  a  figure  six 
which  is  upon  their  watch-dial.  They  will  be 
found  to  divide  between  VI  and  6.  A  few, 
whose  memory  is  more  accurate  than  that  of 
the  others,  recalling  that  the  figures  take  their 
line  of  direction  from  the  center  of  the  dial, 
will  write  the  figure  upside  down.  All,  ex- 
cept those  to  whose  attention  the  peculiarity 
has  already  been  called,  will  'remember'  see- 
ing the  figure.  Yet,  in  watches  with  a  second- 
hand there  is  no  six. 

"Despite  the  best  intentions  of  truthful  peo- 
ple, there  are  many  ways  in  which  the  mem- 
ory may  be  disturbed  without  the  individual 
being  aware  of  the  alteration;  and  a  brief  ref- 
erence to  some  of  the  causes  of  these  memory 
distortions  will  reveal  the  fickleness  of  this 
reproducer  of  past  experiences.  These  altera- 

214 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 

tions  of  memory  have  a  bearing  upon  reports 
of  events  given  either  as  sworn  testimony  or 
in  social  intercourse,  and  all  are  intimately  re- 
lated to  the  psychology  of  the  day's  work. 

"One  of  the  causes  of  unintentional  per- 
version of  memory  is  the  constant  talk  that 
an  exciting  occurrence  produces.  There  is  al- 
ways a  tendency  to  say  what  we  wish  might 
have  happened.  This  is  especially  true  when 
we  ourselves  participated  in  the  events.  'The 
most  frequent  source  of  false  memory/  says 
James,  'is  the  accounts  we  give  to  others  of 
our  experiences.  Such  accounts  we  almost  al- 
ways make  both  more  simple  and  more  inter- 
esting than  the  truth.  We  quote  what  we 
should  have  said  or  done  rather  than  what  we 
really  said  or  did;  and  in  the  first  telling  we 
may  be  fully  aware  of  the  distinction.  But, 
ere  long,  the  fiction  expels  the  reality  from 
memory  and  reigns  in  its  stead  alone/  It  is 
not  necessary,  however,  that  we  be  partici- 
pants in  the  events.  The  tendency  to  enlarge 
upon  a  story  is  human.  So  strong  is  this  in- 
clination that  if  there  is  nothing  unusual  in 
the  occurrence  the  story-teller  transforms  the 
common  into  the  uncommon.  This  is  especi- 
ally true  when  the  marvelous  is  involved. 
Man  is  saturated  with  the  mysterious.' " 

215 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
The  explanation  of  the  exaggerated  testi- 
mony given  by  these  witnesses  in  the  Jester 
trial  is   one  which   applies   more   or  less   to 
every  one. 

We  are  all  inclined  to  let  memory  trick  us 
into  believing  we  really  saw  what  we  wish  we 
had  seen.  If  we  see  only  a  small  part  of  a 
great  catastrophe,  such  as  a  fire  or  an  acci- 
dent, the  desire  of  the  mind  to  have  seen  it  all 
will  incline  even  the  most  truthful  person  to 
believe  next  day  that  he  saw  a  little  more  of 
it  than  he  really  did.  If  he  recounts  the  oc- 
currence, adding  the  scenes  which  he  failed 
to  see  but  which  he  heard  others  describe,  the 
day  after  that  he  will  almost  believe  he  saw 
them  himself.  If  he  has  occasion  to  repeat  the 
narration  many  times,  a  week  later  the  aver- 
age person  will  be  telling  the  whole  story  as 
though  he  saw  all  of  it.  This  will  be  especially 
true  if  no  moral  issue  is  involved  and  no  harm 
done  to  any  one  by  the  exaggeration.  A 
month  later  you  would  have  a  hard  time  con- 
vincing him  that  he  didn't  see  it  all.  The 
gaps  between  the  scenes  he  actually  did  see 
would  be  by  that  time  so  perfectly  filled  in  by 
the  mental  pictures  which  his  own  talking  had 
painted,  that  he  could  not  distinguish  clearly 

between  them. 

216 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 
A  young  man  of  my  acquaintance  saw  a 
runaway  horse  dashing  down  the  street  with 
no  driver  in  the  wagon.  Around  the  corner, 
a  block  away  and  entirely  out  of  sight,  the 
driver,  who  had  been  thrown  from  the  wagon, 
was  describing  in  a  sensational  way  his  col- 
lison  with  another  vehicle,  how  the  horse  be- 
came frightened,  how  he  tried  to  keep  con- 
trol of  him  and  how  he  was  finally  thrown 
out. 

The  young  man  who  had  seen  only  the 
horse,  came  up  just  in  time  to  hear  the  man 
giving  these  descriptions.  So  vividly  did  he 
describe  them,  and  so  much  did  the  young 
man  regret  not  seeing  them,  that  next  after- 
noon he  told  a  group  of  his  friends  about  the 
affair,  beginnng  at  the  beginning  and  making 
himself  a  witness  to  the  entire  accident. 

He  was  not  ordinarily  an  untruthful  young 
man,  but  he  was  young.  In  youth  we  all  long 
to  participate  in  thrilling,  sensational,  myster- 
ious adventures.  Desire,  which  figures  prom- 
inently in  all  memory,  was  so  great  in  this 
young  man  that  he  believed  he  actually  had 
seen  the  runaway  from  the  time  it  started. 

In  recollecting  anything,  we  are  inclined  to 
think  of  what  we  wish  had  happened,  to  place 

217 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
the  interpretations  we  prefer  on  events.  In 
a  little  while  we  find  it  impossible  to  dis- 
tinguish between  what  actually  occurred  and 
our  thoughts  about  what  might  have  occur- 
red. 

To  be  sure,  wishes,  desires,  preferences  con- 
trol our  interpretations  of  every  event  of  life 
to  a  far  greater  extent  than  we  realize.  What 
psychologists  call  a  retroactive  memory  some- 
times steps  in  and  fulfills  these  hopes  in  our 
minds.  Thinking  of  what  we  wish  we  had 
done  on  a  certain  occasion,  we  think  that 
action  into  our  series  of  memories. 

The  mind  also  has  a  habit  of  transposing 
our  experiences  and  inserting  them  in  the 
chronological  order  in  which  we  wish  they 
had  transpired.  For  instance,  witnesses  often 
testify  to  having  examined  the  spot  where  the 
murder  was  committed.  In  their  testimony 
they  insert  their  examination  after  the  crime, 
for  that  lends  a  more  dramatic  element  to  the 
story. 

Bias,  prejudice,  preference  of  all  kinds  blind 
us  to  details  opposed  to  those  prejudices. 
Often  we  do  not  intentionally  shut  out  these 
details.  They  are  shut  out  for  us  by  that  little 
doorkeeper  of  our  subconscious  mind,  "At- 

218 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 

tention."  Let  two  people  hear  a  lecture,  one 
disliking,  the  other  liking  the  speaker.  On 
the  way  home  the  one  who  was  fond  of  the 
speaker  will  refer  to  the  pleasing  manners, 
the  attractive  dress,  the  charming  personality 
and  distinct  voice  which  won  him  in  the  first 
place.  The  other  will  be  unable  to  remember 
these  points,  even  though  the  efforts  of  the 
speaker  in  these  directions  were  so  great  as 
to  be  apparent  to  everyone  else.  The  same 
is  true  of  the  arguments  brought  forth.  De- 
bates and  political  rallies  significantly  illus- 
trate how  we  see  what  we  wish  to  see,  hear 
what  we  wish  to  hear,  and  forget  the  rest. 

A  Republican  and  a  Democrat  go  together 
to  a  Democratic  meeting.  Next  day  the  Dem- 
ocrat will  recall  only  those  points  and  inci- 
dents which  aided  the  Democratic  side.  The 
Republican  will  have  forgotten  them,  but  will 
distinctly  remember  any  misstatements  or  de- 
rogatory incidents.  Hearing  these  two  men 
describe  the  evening's  events  you  would  never 
guess  they  were  describing  the  same  rally. 

To  a  man  who  wishes  to  believe  a  thing, 
every  small  incident  is  significant  evidence, 
just  as,  to  him  who  does  not  wish  to  believe 
it,  nothing  is  sufficient  to  make  it  seem  true. 

The  psychology  of  college  debates  years 
219 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
ago  convinced  me  of  this.  Whether  our  team 
won  or  lost,  we  remembered  only  the  good 
points  it  had  made,  those  places  where  it  dis- 
tinguished itself,  those  refutations  in  which 
it  was  most  brilliant.  If  one  of  our  speak- 
ers achieved  a  moment  of  real  victory  we 
recounted  it  with  such  fervor  that  to  our  lis- 
teners it  out-weighed  the  adverse  decision  of 
the  judges.  In  fact  we  almost  forgot  that  the 
decision  went  against  us.  How  hard  it  was 
to  recall  the  telling  points  made  by  the  oppos- 
ing team!  For  the  life  of  us,  and  in  all  sin- 
cerity, we  couldn't  remember  one  of  them! 

Memory  keeps  green  the  pictures  of  our  tri- 
umphs, unless  the  individual  is  inclined  to 
morbidity,  and  then  it  keeps  alive  the  inci- 
dents in  which  he  failed.  In  either  case,  how- 
ever, it  is  the  same  law  of  desire  in  operation. 
The  morbid  individual  prefers  to  recall  the 
unpleasant.  He  gets  a  kind  of  pleasure  from 
his  own  suffering. 

The  forgetting  of  anything  to  which  one 
has  given  attention  at  the  time  of  its  occur- 
rence is  often  due  to  a  subconscious  desire  to 
forget  it.  No  matter  how  much  you  con- 
centrate your  attention  on  the  name  of  a  man 
at  the  time  he  is  introduced  to  you,  you  are 
likely  to  forget  it  if,  after  being  introduced  to 

220 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 

him,  you  form  a  dislike  for  him.  If,  in  the 
back  of  your  mind,  you  prefer  not  to  know 
him  you  probably  will  not  know  him  the  next 
time  you  meet  him. 

If  you  are  given  unpleasant  tasks  to  per- 
form, such  as  mailing  your  wife's  letters,  no 
impression  she  can  make  on  your  mind  will 
be  as  vivid  as  those  connected  with  pleasant 
tasks.  Everything  which  evokes  painful  feel- 
ings is  more  easily  forgotten  than  those  which 
bring  pleasant  ones.  An  engagement  you  pre- 
fer not  to  keep  is  the  one  you  actually  forget. 

I  will  now  give  you  the  three  fundamental 
laws  of  memory  in  their  order: 

Attention 

Association 

Repetition 

When  you  have  decided  that  you  wish  to  re- 
member a  thing,  that  it  is  conducive  to  your 
interests  to  keep  it  in  mind,  give  it  your  un- 
divided attention.  Turn  the  lens  of  your  men- 
tal camera,  of  which  I  told  you  in  a  previous 
lesson,  directly  on  the  thing  you  wish  to  re- 
member. Close  the  shutter  until  your  mind 
is  focused  directly  and  exclusively  on  that 
one  thing.  Keep  it  there  for  the  space  of  an 
instant,  then  tie  it  up  mentally  with  some- 

221 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
thing  else — associate  it  with  something,  re- 
late it  to  something  already  in  your  life.  For 
instance,  if  you  are  reading  an  important  fact 
in  a  trade  magazine,  get  the  fact  clearly  in 
mind.  Then  do  not  leave  it  isolated,  but  de- 
cide then  and  there  in  what  connection  you 
will  probably  make  use  of  that  idea. 

It  may  be  of  help  to  you  for  me  to  use  here 
a  personal  illustration.  I  have  in  my  reper- 
toire over  sixty  lectures.  Not  a  sentence  in 
one  of  these  sixty  lectures  is  memorized,  yet 
I  am  never  at  a  loss.  I  am  always  being  asked 
how  I  accomplish  it.  It  is  not  difficult, 

I  was  not  born  with  more  than  average 
memory  powers.  In  fact  I  was  often  im- 
pressed as  a  child  with  the  deficiency  of  my 
memory.  After  several  years  of  newspaper 
work  in  which  I  relied  on  notes  exclusively, 
giving  my  memory  little  to  do,  I  found  my- 
self unable  to  remember  names,  faces,  dates 
or  events.  At  about  this  time  I  entered  pub- 
lic work,  the  two  chief  requirements  of  which 
were  that  I  remember  names  and  faces  and 
make  interesting,  accurate,  extemporaneous 
speeches.  Later  in  this  lesson  I  will  tell  you 
how  I  mastered  the  memory  for  names  and 
faces,  but  just  now  I  want  to  tell  you  how  I 
mastered  the  lectures. 

222 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 
Knowing  that  my  future  success  in  life  de- 
pended largely  on  the  success  I  made  of  this 
work,  the  first  element, — that  of  self-interest, 
— was  present.  The  second  element, — desire, 
— was  there  because  I  very  much  wanted  to 
do  that  particular  work.  This,  as  always,  gave 
rise  to  the  third  stage, — interest  in  my  sub- 
ject. No  matter  where  I  was,  what  I  was 
doing,  with  whom  I  was  talking,  that  interest 
was  never  out  of  mind. 

To  get  new  angles  on  my  subjects  I  induced 
people  to  talk  about  them  and  I  read  every- 
thing I  could  find  on  such  subjects.  When  a 
remark  or  a  sentence  struck  me  as  being  val- 
uable I  gave  it  such  white  heat  concentration 
that  I  literally  burned  it  into  my  mind.  But 
I  did  not  stop  at  that.  I  decided  then  and 
there  in  which  lecture  I  would  use  that  idea. 
Not  only  that,  I  decided  under  which  heading 
in  the  lecture  that  particular  idea  belonged. 
I  visualized  myself  saying  it;  I  pictured  the 
effect  on  my  audience.  I  heard  in  my  mind 
the  sentence  with  which  I  would  introduce  it, 
and  something  of  the  words  with  which  I 
should  clothe  the  idea  itself.  With  that  I  left 
it,  trusting  my  memory  absolutely  to  remind 
me  of  it  at  that  particular  point  in  that  lec- 
ture. On  the  day  of  the  lecture  I  went  over 

223 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

in  my  mind  the  respective  sections.  These 
ideas  invariably  came  to  my  mind  and  came 
out  in  my  speech  that  evening  as  smoothly 
as  those  I  had  expressed  before. 

Remember  that  all  memory  is  a  series  of 
related  pictures,  and  to  be  sure  of  remember- 
ing anything  you  must  connect  it  arbitrarily 
or  otherwise  with  something  you  already  have. 
The  content  of  your  mind  is  like  a  commun- 
ity in  which  every  person  is  related  directly 
or  indirectly  to  some  other.  Whenever  you 
wish  to  remember  a  new  idea  you  must  marry 
it  to  some  of  these  friends  or  it  will  get  away 
from  you. 

If  there  is  something  you  wish  to  remem- 
ber to  do  connect  it  with  something  by  decid- 
ing the  time  or  place  when  you  will  do  it. 
Tell  your  mind  to  remind  you,  when  you 
reach  a  certain  spot  opposite  the  postof&ce,  to 
turn  in  and  mail  the  letters.  When  you  get 
opposite  the  postoffice  the  sight  of  that  par- 
ticular spot  will  usually  remind  you  of  the 
errand. 

The  importance  of  association  is  proven  in 
this:  That  your  knowledge  about  anything, 
no  matter  what  it  is,  is  merely  a  knowledge 
that  it  is  like  something  else  or  different  from 
something  else. 

224 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 
One  of  the  most  important  laws  of  memory 
is  that  of  habit.  In  obedience  to  this  law,  the 
first  idea  to  enter  your  mind  after  you  see  a 
certain  thing  will  be  the  one  you  have  most 
frequently  associated  it  with  in  the  past. 
The  sight  of  a  flower  will  bring  to  your  mind 
the  fragrance  of  that  flower.  The  fragrance 
will  bring  the  thought  of  perfumes,  and  this 
will  bring  to  mind  the  perfume  you  are  in  the 
habit  of  using.  The  word  "coffee"  will  sug- 
gest to  each  individual  the  particular  cup  of 
coffee  he  is  in  the  habit  of  having.  The  men- 
tion of  buying  a  home  would  bring  to  your 
mind  the  particular  addition  or  neighborhood 
which  you  have  been  in  the  habit  of  visualiz- 
ing as  the  site  of  your  future  home;  "shoes" 
will  bring  to  the  mind  the  particular  make  you 
have  been  buying  lately;  "tires"  will  remind 
you  of  the  brand  you  are  in  the  habit  of  using. 
It  is  well  known  that  typists  or  pianists  who 
have  learned  one  system  of  fingering  find  it 
difficult  to  change  because  each  letter  or  note 
is  associated  with  a  certain  movement  of  a 
certain  finger.  Habit  has  so  welded  them  to- 
gether that  when  one  enters  the  mind  the 
other  responds  automatically. 

The  law  of  association  expresses  itself  to 
225 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
you  a  hundred  times  a  day.  "Henry  Ford" 
brings  to  your  mind  the  picture  of  a  little 
automobile.  The  word  "home"  brings  to  each 
of  you  a  different  picture, — the  picture  with 
which  it  is  associated  in  your  mnd.  When  I 
say  "Cream  of  Wheat"  you  see  the  smiling 
face  of  a  negro  waiter.  When  I  say  "Y.  M. 
C.  A."  you  see  a  red  triangle,  and  when  I 
say  "Y.  W.  C.  A.,"  a  blue  one.  Because  all 
of  these  have  been  associated  in  your  mind 
you  cannot  think  of  one  without  thinking  of 
the  other. 

Here  is  an  exercise  which  will  show  you 
what  I  mean:  Memory  and  brains — brains 
and  head — head  and  headache — headache  and 
doctor — doctor  and  medicine — medicine  and 
bottle — bottle  and  wine. 

You  can  remember  instantly  that  I  used  the 
word  "medicine."  You  also  recall  whether  or 
not  I  used  the  word  "woman." 

Repetition  under  the  right  conditions  is  the 
third  step  in  perfecting  the  memory.  I  say 
"right  conditions"  because  it  is  now  an  ac- 
cepted fact  that  mere  repetition,  unless  cou- 
pled with  interest,  does  not  make  one  remem- 
ber. 

Do  not  attempt  to  cultivate  your  memory 
226 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 
by  "memorizing  a  few  lines  each  day."  It 
has  been  shown  that  no  amount  of  such  me- 
chanical gymnastics  improves  the  memory. 
Save  your  mental  strength  for  the  many  things 
for  which  you  will  have  some  actual  use  in 
your  daily  life,  and  to  which  you  find  it  easy 
to  give  attention. 

That  children  have  better  memories  than 
adults  is  an  exploded  theory.  Many  investi- 
gations have  been  made  by  the  most  careful 
scientists  with  the  result  that  it  is  now  main- 
tained that  the  capacity  to  remember  every- 
thing of  importance  in  an  individual's  life  im- 
proves throughout  his  life  up  to  the  time  when 
his  mental  powers  in  general  begin  to  decline. 

Children  excel  in  rote-learning  only,  and 
this  because  they  are  accustomed  to  that  par- 
ticular kind  of  memory  work. 

Adults  remember  with  greater  facility  than 
children  for  several  reasons.  First,  they  have 
greater  ability  for  concentrating  their  atten- 
tion, second,  their  self-interest  is  keener,  and 
third,  their  knowledge  with  its  wealth  of  asso- 
ciations, is  wider.  The  capacity  for  reflection, 
concentration  and  ambition  varies  with  the 
individual,  but  adults  have  on  the  whole 
greater  memory  powers. 

227 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

In  cultvating  memory  it  is  of  the  greatest 
importance  to  know  to  what  kinds  of  sensa- 
tions you  respond  easiest  and  quickest.  It 
goes  without  saying  that  the  particular  thing 
which  gets  your  attention  comes  to  you  via 
the  avenue  of  your  most  responsive  senses. 

Many  people  remember  best  what  they  see; 
others  remember  more  clearly  what  they  hear, 
though  the  latter  are  decidedly  in  the  minor- 
ity. The  first  are  called  the  "eye-minded," 
the  second,  the  "ear-minded." 

I  have  a  friend  who  can  never  remember 
what  she  must  get  on  a  shopping  tour,  no 
matter  how  many  times  she  tells  her  friends 
or  herself  what  it  is  she  wishes  to  purchase; 
but  if  she  once  writes  the  list  of  them,  she  can 
forget  to  take  it  with  her,  and  remember  every 
item. 

The  explanation  of  this  is  that  she  is  "eye- 
minded."  No  amount  of  telling  or  being  told 
can  make  a  clear  impression  on  her  mind,  but 
the  mental  picture  of  the  list  is  so  vivid  that 
the  items  recur  to  her  in  the  exact  order  in 
which  they  were  written. 

I  have  another  friend  who  remembers  best 
what  he  hears.  All  people  who  learn  to  play 
musical  instruments  "by  ear"  are  "ear- 
minded." 

228 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 

In  reciting  a  poem  which  one  has  memor- 
ized he  usually  has  each  stanza  photographed 
in  his  mind  and  reads  it  aloud  to  his  audience 
line  for  line  from  the  page  in  his  memory. 

This  fact  explains  the  ineffectiveness  of 
memorized  speeches.  The  audience  is  aware 
of  being  read  to  out  of  the  speaker's  mem- 
ory instead  of  being  talked  to  out  of  his  heart. 

If  you  do  not  know  whether  you  are  eye- 
minded  or  ear-minded,  here  are  some  tests: 

Can  you  remember  how  the  breakfast  table 
looked  this  morning?  Can  you  imagine  a 
street  car  in  motion?  Can  you  picture  the 
distance  between  the  postoffice  and  your 
home?  If  you  answer  "No"  to  these  ques- 
tions you  are  deficient  in  eye-mindedness. 

Can  you  picture  a  hurricane  in  motion? 
Can  you  remember  distinctly  the  different 
scenes  around  your  childhood  home?  After 
reading  an  article  in  the  newspaper,  have  you 
a  keen  memory  as  to  where  it  was  located  on 
the  page?  If  you  answer  "Yes"  to  these  ques- 
tions you  are  above  the  average  in  eye-mind- 
edness. 

Can  you,  in  imagination,  hear  the  telephone 
bell  ringing?  Can  you  remember  the  voice  of 
a  relative  you  have  not  met  for  six  months? 

229 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
If  you  answer  "No"  to  these  questions  you 
are  deficient  in  ear-mindedness. 

Can  you  mentally  hear  the  breathing  of  a 
sleeping  child?  Can  you  in  your  mind  hear 
thunder?  Can  you  recall  the  tones  of  a  selec- 
tion of  music  played  on  the  violin?  If  you 
answer  "Yes"  to  these  questions  you  are 
above  the  average  in  ear-mindedness. 

To  know  whether  you  are  more  "ear- 
minded"  or  "eye-minded,"  recall  which  you 
remember  best,  printed  words  or  spoken 
words. 

Your  memory  as  explained  before,  is  one 
of  your  mental  servants.  Treat  it  as  you 
would  any  other  servant  of  which  you  ex- 
pected good  service. 

Your  memory  is  your  private  secretary, 
file  clerk,  office  boy,  your  mental  library,  all 
in  one. 

If,  upon  securing  important  papers,  I  sent 
for  my  secretary,  handed  them  to  her  and 
said,  "Here  are  these  papers.  I  shall  want 
them  some  time;  I  do  not  know  when,  but 
some  day  I  shall  need  them.  Here  they  are. 
You  are  inefficient;  you  always  fail  me;  you 
never  can  lay  your  hands  on  things  when  I 
want  them,  so  I  don't  suppose  you  will  be  able 

230 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 
to  find  these  when  I  call  for  them."  In  addi- 
tion to  this  if  I  mentioned  to  a  friend  sitting 
beside  me,  "You  know  this  secretary  of  mine 
is  worthless;  I  can't  depend  on  her  at  all" 
...  do  you  think  she  would  produce  those 
papers  when  I  needed  them?  She  might, 
but  the  chances  are  she  wouldn't. 

Memory,  like  other  mental  faculties,  is  re- 
sponsive to  suggestion,  and  especially  to  auto- 
suggestion. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  I  said  to  my  secre- 
tary, "Here  are  some  important  papers.  I 
have  no  idea  when  I  shall  need  them  but 
the  time  will  come.  Put  them  away  and  I 
will  let  you  know.  You  are  such  an  efficient 
secretary  I  know  I  can  depend  upon  you  to 
produce  them  when  the  time  comes."  If  I 
also  said  this  to  my  nearby  friend  in  the  sec- 
retary's presence,  it  would  act  as  a  further 
incentive. 

Your  memory  must  be  treated  in  exactly 
the  same  way.  Give  it  clear,  distinct  infor- 
mation. If  you  are  eye-minded,  get  a  clear 
mental  picture  of  it.  If  you  are  ear-minded 
associate  it  with  sounds  or  whatever  auditory 
images  you  prefer.  Say  to  yourself,  "I  will 
remember  that  when  I  need  it.  When  the 

231 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
time  comes  my  memory  will  know  just  where 
to  lay  her  hands  on  it." 

Here  are  the  five  laws  for  remembering 
names  and  faces: 

1.  Remember  that  the  memory  of  names 
and  faces  is  vital  to  your  success  in  any  line 
of  work,   socially  or  financially.       In    other 
words,  realize  that  your  self-interest  will  be 
greatly  subserved  if  you  can  recall,  on  sight, 
the  names  of  people  you  have  met. 

This  fact  is  based  in  a  psychological  law. 
Everyone  likes  to  be  remembered;  it  flatters 
his  vanity,  it  appeals  to  his  ego,  and  at  the 
same  time  increases  his  respect  and  admira- 
tion for  you.  That  ego  never  quite  forgives 
you  if  you  fail  to  remember  his  name. 

2.  When  a  man  is  being  introduced  to  you 
be  sure  you  not  only  hear  his  name  clearly 
but  know  how  it  is  spelled.     If  there  is  any 
doubt  in  your  mind,  ask  the  man  himself  to 
pronounce  his  name  for  you  and  spell  it  for 
you.     Never  ask  this  of  the  man  who  has 
done  the  introducing.     That  is  a  reflection  on 
him.    The  other  man  will  be  glad  to  tell  you 
because  you  are  discussing  the  one  subject 
in  which  he  is  most  interested — himself. 

Of  course  if  his  name  is  Brown  it  will  not 
232 


HOW  TO  HAVE  A  GOOD  MEMORY 
be  necessary  for  you  to  ask  him  the  spelling, 
for  the  minute  you  hear  it  the  little  printers 
in  your  brain  set  it  up  in  type  and  hold  it  be- 
fore your  mind's  eye.  But  if  his  name  is  a 
long  or  complicated  one,  do  not  consider  that 
you  have  been  introduced  to  him  until  you 
know  how  he  spells  it. 

3.  With  the  spelling  clear  in  your  mind, 
give  your  concentrated  attention  to  his  face. 
Look  at  him,   speak  to  him   while  you   are 
looking  at  him  and  connect  the  name  with 
that  face.     If  you  are  ear-minded,  it  will  help 
if  you  make  him  speak  to  you.     Then  you 
will  have  a  voice  to  associate  with  the  name. 

4.  Do  not  keep  reminding  yourself  of  his 
name.     Simply  file  it  away  in  your  memory, 
knowing  you  will  remember  it  the  next  time 
you  see  him. 

5.  Whenever  you   meet  him   make   it   a 
point  to  address  him  by  name  at  the  begin- 
ning of  your  conversation. 

Your  ability  to  memorize  will  increase  with 
the  demands  you  make  upon  it.  Rely  on 
your  memory.  Place  yourself  in  positions 
where  it  must  save  you,  and  it  will  do  it. 
Memory  is  like  every  other  faculty, — it  de- 
velops with  use.  It  grows  with  the  demands 

233 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
made  upon  it.     It  comes  to  your  rescue  and 
reveals  its  highest  powers  only  in  emergen- 
cies.    Two  important  general  laws  of  mem- 
ory are: 

1.  Don't  worry  about  your  memory. 

2.  Never  say  to  anyone,  "I  have  a  poor 
memory." 


234 


CHAPTER  VI 
HOW  TO  BUILD  WILL  POWER 

The  human  will,  that  force  unseen, 
The  tribute  of  a  deathless  soul, 

Can  hew  the  way  to  any  goal, 

Though  walls  of  granite  intervene. 

ELLA    WHEELER    WILCOX. 

F  I  were  a  fairy  godmother  and  told 
you   I   would   increase   whichever 
one  of  your  powers  you  named, 
you  would  probably  say,  "Give  me 
more  will  power." 

Most  of  us  feel  that  we  know  what  we 
ought  to  do  but  think  we  lack  the  will  power 
to  do  it. 

This  is  a  mistake.  Every  person  who  is 
not  feeble-minded  has  all  the  will  power  he 
needs  to  accomplish  what  he  sets  out  to  do. 
What  he  lacks  is  the  habit  of  exercising  his 
will  power. 

Every  individual  of  average  intelligence  has 
enough  will  power  to  accomplish  almost  any- 
thing, but  he  doesn't  know  it. 

Will  power  is  human  electricity.  You  have 
enough  of  this  electricity  generated  in  you  to 

235 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
achieve  the  greatest  things  in  life  if  you  would 
keep  the  current  on. 

The  trouble  with  us  all  is  that  we  fail  to 
watch  the  current.  We  press  the  button  oc- 
casionally and  have  moments  of  exultation 
when  we  feel  that  nothing  is  impossible,  but 
we  allow  our  minds  to  relax.  The  transcend- 
ent moment  passes  and  we  relapse  into  the 
dull  feelings  of  the  commonplace. 

In  this  lesson  I  am  going  to  show  you  how 
to  keep  the  current  on  all  the  time  and  how 
to  increase  it,  when  necessary,  to  the  highest 
voltage. 

If  you  will  follow  these  instructions  you  can 
do  what  you  want  to  do,  you  can  have  what 
you  want  to  have.  You  can  make  the  trans- 
cendent moments  permanent.  You  can  be- 
come a  leader,  a  dominant  figure  in  the  place 
in  which  you  live.  You  can  remake  your  life. 

Let  me  make  clear  at  the  outset  that  I  do 
not  promise  you  can  do  this  in  a  day.  I  do 
not  say  you  can  have  these  rewards  for  noth- 
ing. You  must  pay  a  price  for  them.  You 
must  pay  a  big  price.  But  what  you  will  get 
for  that  price  will  be  worth  to  you  a  thousand 
times  more  than  it  costs. 

Anything  worth  having  costs.    Nothing  but 
236 


HOW  TO  BUILD  WILL  POWER 
the  undesirable  comes  free.  I  will  give  you 
the  rules;  it  is  up  to  you  to  do  the  rest.  Fol- 
low them  with  even  fifty  per  cent  of  faithful- 
ness and  a  year  from  today  you  will  be  a 
changed  individual.  You  will  have  advanced 
several  rungs  in  the  ladder  of  success.  There 
will  be  a  conquering  gleam  in  your  eyes,  more 
money  in  your  purse,  more  respect  in  your 
soul,  and  your  progress  will  be  noted  by  all 
who  know  you.  If  you  will  give  even  half 
your  application  to  these  laws  I  promise  you 
that  ten  years  from  now  you  will  have  made 
a  name  for  yourself. 

We  all  want  to  be  able  to  apply  our  will 
power.  The  man  of  strong  will  is  more  truly 
a  man  than  all  others.  The  woman  of  strong 
will  is  a  superwoman.  They  are  the  rulers 
of  the  forces  in  their  own  world.  They  do 
what  they  set  out  to  do.  They  know  they 
have  power.  They  use  it  to  accomplish  their 
aims.  They  are  loved  and  admired  above  all 
others.  When  you  come  into  contact  with 
them  you  can  fairly  feel  the  force  emanating 
from  them. 

Before  giving  you  the  laws  for  building  will 
power,  let  me  tell  you  some  interesting  things 
about  will  power. 

237 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
All  the  people  in  the  world  can  be  put  into 
two  classes  with  regard  to  will:  those  whose 
wills  are  overdeveloped, — the  impulsive,  dare- 
devil people  with  an  over-supply  of  will  pow- 
er,— and  those  of  under-developed  wills.  The 
former  have  wills  so  strong  they  run  away 
with  them.  The  latter  have  weak  wills.  The 
wills  of  the  former  are  too  energetic.  The 
latter  are  known  as  the  "lazy  willed." 

To  be  successful  you  must  generate  your 
will  power  to  the  point  where  you  have  as 
much  as  those  of  the  over-active  will,  but  con- 
trol it  instead  of  letting  it  control  you.  You 
must  learn  to  drive  it  instead  of  being  driven 
by  it 

In  these  two  classes  are  eight  different  kinds 
of  wills.  Read  this  carefully  and  decide  at 
the  outset  which  is  yours: 

INACTIVE  WILL:  Some  people  glide 
along  through  life  without  taking  any  real 
part  in  it.  They  do  not  seem  able  to  stim- 
ulate themselves  or  to  be  stimulated.  I  have 
in  mind  the  people  who  let  others  decide 
things  for  them,  who  have  no  fixed  purpose 
and  who  seem  incapable  of  making  decisions. 

As  decision  is  the  first  step  in  will  making, 
these  people  seem  never  to  have  will  power. 

238 


HOW  TO  BUILD  WILL  POWER 
Have  you  noticed  that  some  people  evade 
every  critical  situation,  refuse  to  accept  re- 
sponsibility? Their  aims  seem  to  point  in  no 
direction;  they  refuse  to  take  a  stand  even 
with  regard  to  their  own  affairs.  Have  you 
noticed  how  this  kind  of  person  evades,  how 
he  sidesteps,  how  he  seems  to  have  no  definite 
ideas  or  attitudes  about  things? 

Have  you  noticed  the  kind  of  person  who 
lets  his  parents,  wife,  children  or  friends  de- 
cide for  him,  or  who  waits  for  circumstances 
to  decide?  This  is  the  inactive- willed  individ- 
ual 

I  know  of  one  such  young  woman  who  is 
being  pushed  here  and  there  like  a  chessman 
on  the  board,  first  by  this  person,  then  by  that, 
because  she  refuses  to  assume  responsibility. 
Like  all  people  who  wait  for  the  trend  of  cir- 
cumstances instead  of  "trending  circumstan- 
ces" themselves,  she  never  gets  anything  she 
wants. 

He  who  relies  on  "circumstances"  to  bring 
him  what  he  desires  will  get  from  those  cir- 
cumstances only  the  things  he  does  not  de- 
sire. 

Very  few  desirable  things  happen  to  the 
man  who  waits  on  chance.  To  get  anything 

239 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

worth  having  you  must  go  after  it,  keep  after 
it  and  hunt  it  down.  The  crumbs  of  life  are 
all  that  fall  to  him  who  sits  under  the  table 
instead  of  taking  his  place  at  the  head  of  the 
table. 

If  you  have  a  child  who  is  inclined  to  let 
you  make  his  decisions  for  him,  start  today 
to  compel  him  to  decide  some  things  for  him- 
self. 

I  recently  heard  a  mother  say  with  pride: 
"I  am  glad  Harold  is  so  obedient.  He  never 
decides  anything.  He  leaves  it  all  to  me.  He 
does  just  as  I  think  best  in  everything.  He  is 
a  great  comfort  to  me.  He  is  so  unlike  Mrs. 
Gregory's  boy  who  can't  be  dissuaded  from 
what  he  wants  to  do." 

Doubtless  Mrs.  Gregory  envies  Harold's 
mother  the  peace  and  comfort  she  is  deriving 
from  her  amenable  son.  But  fifteen  years 
from  now,  if  these  two  boys  follow  the  paths 
on  which  they  have  started,  this  mother  will 
be  envying  Mrs.  Gregory. 

Unquestioned  obedience  and  lack  of  definite 
opinions  are  attractive  in  babies,  but  in  no 
one  else.  Life  is  ruthless.  It  rides  over  and 
grinds  into  the  dust  every  person  who  cannot 
stand  up  for  himself. 

240 


HOW  TO  BUILD  WILL  POWER 

Doubtless  Mrs.  Gregory's  boy  is  the  bane 
of  her  existence  today,  but  he  has  ten  chances 
to  Harold's  one  when  he  leaves  her  side  for 
the  world.  It  takes  definiteness, — knowing 
what  you  want  and  when  you  want  it, — to 
win  a  place  for  one's  self  in  this  world. 

The  boy  who  passively  submits  every  ques- 
tion to  his  parents  is  a  source  of  comfort  as  a 
baby,  but  a  source  of  humiliation  as  a  man, 
while  the  parents  of  the  headstrong  baby  us- 
ually live  to  see  the  world  bow  to  him  as  he 
made  them  bow. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  big  men  and 
women  of  this  world  were  all  more  or  less 
incorrigible  as  school  children.  The  submis- 
sive youngsters  in  their  classes  who  used  to 
get  high  marks  in  "deportment,"  are  not 
heard  of. 

If  you  find  it  easier  to  let  anything  or  any- 
body make  your  decisions  for  you;  if  you  are 
always  asking  to  be  told  what  to  do  about 
this  or  that;  if  you  dislike  to  assume  the  bur- 
den of  a  decision,  you  belong  in  the  inactive- 
willed  class. 

This  tendency,  if  unchecked,  will  bring  you 
the  remnants,  the  leavings,  and  the  tail-ends 
of  life.  To  overcome  it,  force  yourself  to  see 

241 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
how  colorless  and  uninteresting  an  individual 
you  are  getting  to  be. 

Start  with  the  little  things,  such  as  deciding 
for  yourself  today  where  you  will  eat  lunch, 
instead  of  waiting  for  your  companions'  ad- 
vice. Gradually  work  up  to  the  big  things 
in  your  life. 

I  do  not  mean  that  you  should  refuse  to 
listen  to  the  advice  of  others,  but  I  do  mean 
that  after  hearing  that  advice  you  must  decide 
on  its  merits. 

Beware  of  the  weakness  of  always  seeking 
advice.  Remember  you  must  live  your  own 
life.  Remember  also  that  no  one  can  see  your 
life  as  you  can  see  it  if  you  will  look.  After 
you  are  twenty  years  of  age,  if  you  keep  your 
eyes  and  ears  open,  and  your  mind  working, 
you  are  a  better  judge  of  the  little  things  than 
anyone  else.  After  you  are  thirty  if  you  let 
others  make  your  big  decisions  you  are  sliding 
down  the  toboggan  to  oblivion;  you  are  going 
to  be  a  nonentity. 

Most  of  those  who  are  living  at  home  after 
thirty  are  paying  in  unhappiness  for  their  in- 
active wills. 

We  know  ourselves  very  little.  Our  real 
motives,  desires  and  tendencies  lie  submerged 

242 


HOW  TO  BUILD  WILL  POWER 
in  the  depths  of  our  subconscious.  The  wo- 
man who  at  thirty-five  is  still  living  at  home 
usually  believes  in  all  sincerity  what  she  tells 
you,  that  "she  has  never  been  able  to  get 
away  because  father  and  mother  needed  her." 

The  truth  of  it  usually  is  that  she  needed 
father  and  mother.  Nine  out  of  ten  such  wo- 
men belong  in  the  class  of  the  inactive  willed. 
They  cling  to  home  and  parents  out  of  the 
subconscious  fear  of  making  decisions,  facing 
responsibility  or  plunging  into  the  maelstrom 
of  life.  They  go  to  their  graves  without  rec- 
ognizing this  fact.  They  make  a  virtue  of 
their  vice.  The  world  calls  them  "self-sac- 
rificing," forgetting,  as  Mark  Twain  said  in 
his  essay  "What  is  Man,"  that  "Every  act  of 
every  human  being  is  for  the  purpose  of  con- 
tenting his  own  spirit." 

If  you  are  over  thirty-five  and  find  it  easy  to 
wander  back  home  occasionally  to  spend  a 
year  or  two,  you  are  in  danger.  Your  sub- 
conscious is  secretly  looking  for  something  to 
lean  on.  Come  home  occasionally  to  visit, 
take  care  of  your  parents  if  necessary,  by  all 
means,  but  don't  let  them  take  care  of  you. 

You  will  never  develop  a  great  will  living 
with  your  father  and  mother.  Of  course  I 
am  not  speaking  of  those  whose  fathers  and 

243 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
mothers  live  with  them,  who  blaze  the  trail 
and  face  the  world  to  shield  their  parents.  I 
am  speaking  of  those  who  frequently  take  up 
their  position  behind  father's  and  mother's 
front  trench. 

IMPULSIVE  WILL.  The  second  are  those 
of  the  impulsive  wills,  who  seem  to  "do  things 
without  thinking,"  who  have  sudden  attrac- 
tions and  repulsions,  who  obey  all  of  these 
attractions  and  repulsions,  darting  down  this 
road  and  that  without  making  headway  on 
the  main  highway  of  their  lives.  I  mean  those 
who  decide  everything  instantly  on  the  im- 
pulse and  who,  for  this  reason,  are  always 
being  compelled  to  rescind  their  decisions  and 
make  new  ones.  I  mean  those  who  throw 
prudence  to  the  winds. 

If  you  are  one  of  these,  promise  yourself 
you  will  not  make  a  decision  next  time  on  the 
moment  but  will  compel  yourself  to  think  it 
over.  Even  if  you  are  sure  you  will  ultimately 
make  that  decision,  hold  it  in  abeyance  for  a 
few  minutes  or  hours.  In  this  way  you  will 
train  yourself  to  more  sober  judgments. 

OVERACTIVE  WILLS.  The  third  is  the 
class  called  the  over-active-willed.  These  are 
like  the  impulsive-willed  but  more  diffuse. 

244 


HOW  TO  BUILD  WILL  POWER 
They  make  decisions  on  everything  and  begin 
the  action  on  those  decisions.  They  are  the 
people  whom  we  think  of  as  having  a  "whirl- 
wind of  plans"  all  the  time,  who  have  many 
irons  in  the  fire,  who  lay  out  too  many  kinds 
of  activities  for  themselves. 

The  remedy  for  these  is  to  realize  that  life 
is  short,  that  the  man  who  attempts  too  much 
gets  nowhere.  They  should  focus.  If  you 
belong  to  this  class  and  will  specialize,  you 
will  accomplish  great  things  for  this  is  one  of 
the  most  powerful  wills  and  one  of  the  most 
desirable  when  properly  directed. 

DISCOURAGED  WILLS.  The  fourth  is 
the  "discouraged  will/' — the  will  of  the  indi- 
vidual who  has  tried  so  many  times  and  failed 
that  he  says  now  "I  can't.  I  have  no  will 
power.  It  is  no  use.  I  have  tried  and.  failed 
so  often  and  so  completely  there  is  no  use 
trying  again." 

These  people  see  and  know  what  they 
should  do  but  refuse  to  try  again.  They  are 
superior  to  those  of  the  inactive  wills,  for  they 
have  made  efforts.  They  deserve  credit  for 
their  attempts.  If  you  belong  in  this  class, 
read  the  instructions  in  this  lesson,  adhere  to 
them,  and  you  can  do  what  you  want  to  do. 

245 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

EMOTIONAL  WILLS.  In  the  fifth  sub- 
division  are  those  known  as  "the  emotional- 
willed."  They  are  characterized  by  their  in- 
tense feelings.  These  are  the  people  who  feel 
more  than  they  think.  They  decide  every- 
thing on  their  feelings  and  moods.  Usually 
the  mood  or  the  emotion  is  so  intense  that 
they  let  it  go  at  that. 

It  is  a  well  known  psychological  fact  that 
we  act  only  to  rid  ourselves  of  pent  up  ten- 
sion. 

When  the  emotional-willed  finds  a  tempor- 
ary outlet  for  his  feelings,  he  is  inclined  not 
to  act  on  his  decision.  He  is  going  down  the 
street,  sees  a  man  injured,  decides  with  tears 
in  his  eyes,  to  do  something  to  help  him,  gets 
the  man's  name  and  determines  to  call  at  the 
hospital  next  day  to  find  out  what  he  can  do 
for  the  man's  family,  but  before  the  next  day 
arrives  he  has  so  completely  vented  his  emo- 
tion in  telling  the  story  to  his  friends,  that  he 
never  goes  to  the  hospital. 

If  you  are  of  an  emotional  will,  don't  make 
rash  promises  on  your  feelings,  for  feelings 
have  a  way  of  oozing  out.  Look  yourself  in 
the  eye  and  realize  that  too  much  emotional 
tensity  will  prevent  your  putting  anything 
through. 

246 


HOW  TO  BUILD  WILL  POWER 

The  next  time  you  find  yourself  deeply 
sympathetic,  furiously  angry  or  exultantly 
happy,  don't  let  that  emotional  self  in  tem- 
porary control  trick  you  into  deciding  things. 

It  is  always  better  to  avoid  making  the  de- 
cision you  are  not  likely  to  carry  out,  because 
the  failure  to  live  up  to  it  has  a  tendency  to 
rob  you  of  your  self-respect. 

VACILLATING  WILLS.  The  sixth  class 
is  closely  allied  with  the  emotionals  and  is 
called  the  "vacillating-willed."  These  people 
change  their  minds  so  often  before  action 
takes  place  that  they  accomplish  very  little. 
They  waste  their  energy  making  decisions 
which  they  never  carry  out.  The  man  who 
says,  "I  will  see  Jones  today  and  make  those 
arrangements,"  and  who  ten  minutes  later 
says,  "No,  I  won't  do  that,  I'll  wait  and  see 
Brown,"  usually  lets  the  day  go  by  without 
seeing  either. 

I  know  a  young  man  who  has  this  kind  of 
will.  He  plans  on  giving  Thursday  evening  to 
attending  a  serious  lecture  on  a  subject  in 
which  he  is  interested,  but  when  Thursday 
evening  comes  he  says,  "I  don't  feel  in  the 
mood  for  that  tonight.  I  want  to  do  some- 
thing else.  I  want  to  be  cheered  up.  I  want 
a  thrill.  I  am  going  to  see  some  vaudeville." 

247 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
Before  the  performance  is  half  over  he  leaves, 
regretting  that  the  lecture  is  also  over. 

If  you  classify  yourself  with  the  "vacillat- 
ing-willed/' put  the  brakes  on  when  you  find 
yourself  making  decisions  wholesale.  Train 
yourself  to  look  the  ground  over  every  morn- 
ing; to  decide  what  is  best  to  do.  And  then 
don't  allow  yourself  to  make  too  many 
changes. 

PRACTICAL  WILLS.  The  seventh  are 
the  "practical-willed."  These  people  see 
everything  from  the  practical  standpoint. 
They  are  the  other  extreme  from  the  emo- 
tional and  vacillating,  but  in  the  end  get  no 
more  out  of  life. 

These  are  the  people  who  live  in  the  ruts 
and  grinds  of  daily  details  and  routine,  who 
never  have  one  grand  overpowering  purpose. 
These  are  the  people  who  must  do  a  certain 
thing  on  Monday,  another  on  Tuesday,  an- 
other on  Thursday,  another  on  Sunday,  be- 
cause they  decided,  perhaps  years  ago,  that 
it  was  advisable  to  do  these  things  on  these 
days. 

They  pride  themselves  on  their  "will  pow- 
er," forgetting  that  the  will  should  be  a  ser- 
vant to  reason,  and  if  the  reason  has  changed, 

248 


HOW  TO  BUILD  WILL  POWER 

the  will  current  should  be  turned  to  fit  the 
new  conditions. 

These  people  are  inclined  to  be  narrow. 
They  are  the  human  penny-in-the-slot  ma- 
chines. 

If  you  find  yourself  adhering  to  the  sched- 
ules of  five  years  ago  without  making  im- 
provements in  it;  if  you  cannot  adapt  your- 
self to  the  exigencies  of  new  situations ;  if  you 
refuse  to  bend  to  the  plans  of  others  occas- 
ionally, you  do  have  will  power.  But  you  are 
paying  more  for  it  than  it  is  worth.  Its  cur- 
rent will  not  carry  you  far  unless  you  learn 
to  direct  it  according  to  the  needs  and  merits 
of  each  situation  instead  of  to  preconceived 
conditions. 

PURPOSIVE  WILLS.  The  eighth  and  last 
subdivision  is  the  one  in  which  we  all  hope  to 
be  classed  and  in  which  to  a  great  extent  you 
may  put  yourself  if  you  will  follow  the  rules 
of  this  lesson.  These  are  the  "purposive- 
willed/' — those  who  decide  what  they  want  to 
do  after  looking  over  the  merits  of  the  case, 
who  gather  their  forces  and  get  there. 

In  this  class  are  those  who  make  up  their 
minds  as  you  make  up  a  train,  turn  on  the 
steam  and  go  ahead  to  their  destination.  It  is 

249 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

this  kind  of  will  which  all  great  men  and  wo- 
men have,  to  some  extent,  possessed. 

Among  the  leading  women  of  America 
whom  I  have  had  the  honor  of  knowing  per- 
sonally, I  have  found  this  purposive  will  strik- 
ingly exemplified  by  that  great  leader  of  the 
woman  suffrage  movement,  Carrie  Chapman 
Catt.  That  her  purposive  will  has  been  to  a 
great  extent  responsible  for  the  emancipation 
of  American  women  is  a  fact  too  well  known 
to  need  an  echo  from  me.  But  the  following 
sidelight  on  will  power  in  general  is  too  sig- 
nificant to  leave  untold. 

A  few  years  ago  I  had  occasion  to  spend  a 
few  days  in  the  little  Iowa  town  whose  chief 
pride  is  that  this  international  figure  spent  her 
girlhood  there. 

Inasmuch  as  a  leading  American  magazine 
had,  the  month  previous,  printed  a  symposium 
of  the  opinions  of  prominent  Europeans  and 
Americans  to  the  effect  that  Carrie  Chapman 
Catt  was  the  leading  woman  of  the  English 
speaking  races,  I  was  much  interested  in  the 
psychology  of  her  girlhood  friends. 

One  evening  at  a  gathering  of  these  I  asked 
them  in  what  way,  if  any,  she  seemed  differ- 
ent from  them  when  they  were  all  children 
together. 

250 


HOW  TO  BUILD  WILL  POWER 
"Nothing,"  they  said.  "Carrie  was  just 
like  the  rest  of  us  as  far  as  we  could  see,  ex- 
cept this:  whenever  she  made  up  her  mind  to 
do  anything  she  always  did  it.  She  put 
through  whatever  she  started." 

"How  is  it  possible  to  build  will  power?" 
you  ask.  The  answer  is  simple.  It  is  also 
scientific.  Your  mind  is  living  protoplasm  and 
all  living  protoplasm  can  be  trained. 

If  I  told  you  I  could  teach  you  how  to  de- 
velop your  body  muscles  to  the  point  of  phy- 
sical efficiency  you  would  not  question  it.  In 
this  lesson  I  am  going  to  show  you  how  to 
train  your  brain  muscles.  This  is  simpler  than 
training  your  body  muscles,  because  your 
brain  has  much  greater  susceptibility,  is  cap- 
able of  far  greater  change  and  development. 

Will  is  directed  desire.  It  is  not  a  mere 
matter  of  thinking.  It  is  thinking  plus  feeling. 
Thoughts  are  cold,  but  feelings  are  warm, 
alive,  vital. 

The  first  law  in  building  will  power  is: 
Learn  to  desire.  You  must  not  only  wish, — 
you  must  want.  You  must  stir  your  nature 
to  its  very  depths  if  you  would  gain  anything 
great. 

Desire, —  emotion, —  passion, —  wanting, — 
251 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

demanding, — these  are  the  things  that  create. 
Do  not  stop  at  thinking,  wishing,  yearning  or 
longing. 

If  your  ambition  is  worth  while,  let  it  pos- 
sess you,  give  it  a  free  rein.  If  it  isn't  worthy, 
get  one  that  is. 

To  create  a  thing  you  must  want  it  with  a 
burning  want  that  recognizes  no  refusal, — 
that  brooks  no  denial. 

Every  leader  of  men  is  characterized  by  the 
intensity  of  his  desires.  You  never  hear  him 
say  he  "wishes"  he  could  do  a  thing.  He 
says,  "I  want  to  do  it." 

That  wanting,  that  burning  determination 
kindles  desires  in  those  around  him,  makes 
them  want  to  help  him  get  it,  makes  them  fol- 
low him,  and  these  in  turn  incite  him  to  fur- 
ther action. 

Whenever  you  come  in  contact  with  a  man 
of  intense  desire  you  feel  the  force  radiating 
from  him.  You  feel  he  has  learned  how  to 
concentrate  that  force  on  things  he  wanted  to 
do. 

Let  me  give  you  here  the  second  law  for 
building  will  power:  Eliminate  the  non-es- 
sentials. The  big  man  focuses  his  strength  on 
the  important  things,  the  vital  things.  He 

252 


HOW  TO  BUILD  WILL  POWER 
doesn't  even  see  the  superficial,  unnecessary, 
trivial  things  that  would  sap  his  energy. 

Just  as  attention  is  the  secret  of  Worry  and 
visualization  the  secret  of  Self-Confidence, 
concentration  is  the  big  basic  secret  of  Will 
Power.  Any  man  who  will  keep  his  mind 
concentrated  on  what  he  wants  will  get  it. 
This  is  due  to  the  psychological  law  that  our 
actions  follow  our  thoughts. 

You  express  will  power  a  hundred  times  a 
day.  If  you  think  you  lack  will  power  tell  me 
what  it  is  that  enables  you  to  get  up  in  the 
morning;  what  it  is  that  has  made  possible 
everything  you  have  ever  achieved. 

We  will  take  a  familiar  example.  You  de- 
sire to  move  your  foot— and  it  moves.  Why? 
Because  this  wonderful  mysterious  force  stored 
up  within  you  is  the  electrical  current  you  have 
released  to  move  your  foot.  This  current 
can  only  be  generated  by  desire. 

Most  people  in  the  world  do  not  know  how 
to  desire.  They  do  not  know  what  it  is  to  be 
filled  with  an  eager,  intense  craving,  longing, 
ravenous  desire  that  takes  possession  of  them 
and  makes  them  demand  things  instead  of  ask- 
ing for  them.  They  are  like  sheep,  rabbits  or 
pigeons  who  sit  meekly  around  while  the 

253 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

strong  ones  of  the  race — those  filled  with  these 
burning  desires — gather  up  every  good  thing 
in  sight. 

There  is  in  this,  as  in  all  natural  laws,  a  kind 
of  justice.  Those  who  do  not  exercise  the 
force  which  nature  has  given  them  cannot  peo- 
ple the  world  with  strong  souls. 

Any  man  with  will  power  can  open  the  door 
to  what  he  wants.  Most  of  us  sit  on  the  door- 
step crying  for  it  to  open. 

Will  power  is  more  than  a  mere  faculty  of 
the  mind.  It  is  a  mighty  attribute.  Buxton 
said,  "I  am  more  certain  the  longer  I  live  that 
the  greatest  difference  between  men,  between 
the  weak  and  the  strong,  the  great  and  the 
small,  is  energy, — invincible  determination, — 
a  purpose  once  fixed,  and  then  victory  or  death. 

"Will  power  will  do  anything  that  can  be 
done  in  this  world.  No  talents,  no  conditions, 
no  opportunities,  will  make  a  two-legged  man 
without  it." 

Disraeli  said,  "I  have  brought  myself,  after 
long  meditation,  to  the  conviction  that  a  hu- 
man being  with  a  settled  purpose  can  accom- 
plish it,  that  nothing  can  resist  a  will  which 
will  stake  existence,  if  need  be,  on  its  fulfill- 
ment." 

254 


HOW  TO  BUILD  WILL  POWER 

Donald  G.  Mitchell  said,  "Resolve  is  what 
makes  a  man  manifest  not  puny  resolve,  not 
crude  determination,  not  errant  purpose,  but 
that  indefatigable  will  which  treads  down  dif- 
ficulties and  dangers  as  a  boy  treads  down  the 
heaving  frost  lands  of  winter,  which  kindles 
his  eye  and  brain  with  a  proud  pulse  beat. 
Will  makes  men  giants." 

The  secret  of  resolute  will  is  found  in  per- 
sistence and  determination.  Learn  tenacity  of 
attention — concentration. 

You  must  learn  to  concentrate  your  will 
upon  a  thing  and  not  allow  it  to  be  distracted 
or  wander  off  until  you  have  done  what  you 
have  set  out  to  do.  This  can  be  done  by  fol- 
lowing the  triple  methods  set  forth  in  this 
lesson. 

First,  stir  up  your  desire — make  it  live;  sec- 
ond, determine  that  you  will  do  it,  and  third, 
act.  Millions  of  men  have  done  these  things 
and  so  may  you  if  you  try. 

At  first  your  greatest  enemy  will  be  habit. 
But  habit  is  a  thing  that  can  be  changed. 
Your  habits  are  now  enemy  habits.  If  you 
will  follow  the  rules  of  this  lesson  your  habits 
will  be  your  friends. 

The  thing  you  call  your  weak  will  is  not  a 
weak  will  but  a  load  of  detrimental  habits. 

255 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

You  created  these  habits.  You  can  demolish 
them.  You  created  them  by  giving  them  your 
vote  when  you  might  have  voted  for  some- 
thing better. 

Every  individual  is  an  Ego  with  two  selves 
— a  weak  self  and  a  strong  self.  The  weak 
self  always  takes  the  easy  way  out;  it  is  lazy, 
inert,  made  up  of  our  lower  instincts.  The 
stronger  self  may  be  said  to  be  composed  of 
our  higher  instincts,  such  as  aspiration  and 
altruism. 

If  you  are  enslaved  to  bad  habits  it  is  be- 
cause the  ego  of  you  has  cast  its  vote  with 
the  weaker  self  so  often  your  giving  in  to  it 
has  become  more  or  less  automatic. 

To  develop  your  will  do  not  attempt  to 
change  yourself  in  a  day. 

"How  shall  I  a  habit  break?" 
"As  you  did  that  habit  make; 
As  you  gathered,  you  must  lose; 
As  you  yielded,  now  refuse. 
Thread  by  thread  the  strands  we  twist, 
Till  they  bind  us,  neck  and  wrist; 
Thread  by  thread,  the  patient  hand 
Must  untwine  till  free  we  stand. 
As  we  builded  stone  by  stone, 
We  must  toil  unhelped,  alone, 
Till  the  wall  is  overthrown." 
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HOW  TO  BUILD  WILL  POWER 
Carlyle  says,  "Habit  is  the  deepest  law  of 
human  nature.  It  is  our  supreme  strength  as 
well  as  our  greatest  weakness.  Let  me  go 
once,  and  my  footsteps  are  an  invitation  to 
me  a  second  time  to  go  by  the  same  way." 

Just  as  habit  has  been  allowed  to  work 
against  you  it  can  now  be  made  to  work  for 
you.  Gather  the  strength  to  do  today  a  few 
little  things  that  are  not  easy  and  tomorrow 
they  will  be  easier. 

William  James  said,  "Do  not  try  to  destroy 
your  bad  habits  by  force.  Make  some  good 
ones  and  they  will  destroy  the  others." 

To  do  this,  first  get  control  of  the  physical 
channels  of  expression — the  channels  thru 
which  are  expressed  the  mental  states  of  self- 
confidence.  Get  control  of  the  muscles  thru 
which  Mall  power  is  expressed.  Control  your 
shoulders.  Begin  to  put  them  back  manfully 
instead  of  letting  them  sag.  Get  control  of 
the  muscles  that  hold  your  head  up.  Control 
your  eyes.  Gaze  into  the  face  of  the  world 
fearlessly.  Get  control  of  the  muscles  of 
your  legs  and  walk  firmly  as  a  positive  man 
does.  Get  control  of  the  vocal  organs  and 
begin  to  speak  in  the  vibrant  tones  which  com- 
mand attention  and  respect. 

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PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

We  do  not  know  just  how  it  happens  but 
we  do  know  that  these  things  clear  a  channel 
through  which  will  power  expresses  itself. 

Learn  to  keep  your  mind  on  what  you  want 
to  do.  When  you  have  once  focused  your 
will  on  a  thing  hold  it  there.  When  it  runs 
away,  bring  it  back.  Shut  out  the  fringes. 

The  Orientals  have  a  word  to  express  the 
concentration  which  gets  things, — "one-point- 
ed." Put  out  of  your  mind  all  thoughts  and 
ideas  that  are  out  of  harmony  with  the  big 
ideal  of  your  life. 

At  first  you  will  have  to  fight  against  all 
manner  of  distracting  thoughts  but  after  a 
while  you  will  acquire  the  habit  of  turning 
them  away  without  conscious  interruption. 

The  best  method  for  warding  off  undesir- 
able thoughts  is  to  keep  the  mind  filled  with 
mental  pictures  or  visualizations  of  yourself  as 
doing  the  thing  you  wish  to  do.  This  adds  oil 
to  the  flame  of  your  desire. 

The  art  of  concentration  has  up  to  this  time 
been  shrouded  in  occultism  and  mystery.  This 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  its  advocates  had  only 
empirical  knowledge  on  the  subject  They 
have  observed  what  could  be  accomplished  by 
concentrative  methods,  but  have  had  no 

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HOW  TO  BUILD  WILL  POWER 
comprehension  of  the  reason  for  the  results 
achieved. 

Absolute  concentration  means  merely  the 
massing  of  all  your  thoughts  upon  a  single 
purpose.  It  means  mental  efficiency.  It 
means  drawing  your  mental  fires  to  one  point 
instead  of  merely  shooting  sparks  into  space. 

Ordinarily  your  desires  and  emotions  scat- 
ter your  energies  and  exhaust  you  to  no  pur- 
pose whatever.  Organize  these  powers  and 
the  only  question  then  to  be  answered  is, 
"What  shall  I  go  after?"  Mental  coordina- 
tion, harmony  and  unity,  such  as  will  lift  you 
out  of  all  petty  annoyances,  can  be  yours. 
Your  stream  of  consciousness  is  a  living  cur- 
rent. It  is  a  swirling  torrent  of  activity.  Its 
powers  have  always  been  under-estimated. 

Lillian  Hartman  Johnson,  Ph.D.,  eminent 
Mental  Analyst  and  authority  on  the  subcon- 
scious, says,  "Your  mental  attitude  must  be 
made  up  of  but  two  ideas:  'I  am  certain  to 
succeed,'  and,  'how.'  If  you  will  constantly 
maintain  this  attitude  you  will  draw  from  the 
profoundest  depths  of  your  nature  the  plans 
and  power  for  doing  it." 

I  will  now  give  you  the  twenty-five  specific 
rules  by  which  you  may  build  your  will  power 
and  control  your  destiny. 

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PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

No.  1.  Awaken  the  power  of  willing  by 
realizing  that  you  can  will  to  do  a  thing.  In 
other  words,  come  to  a  realization  of  the  pow- 
er and  possibilities  of  the  human  will,  and  that 
you  possess  one. 

Most  people  fail  to  develop  will  power  be- 
cause they  refuse  to  will  to  do  a  thing.  At 
these  moments  open  your  mind  and  let 
the  consciousness  of  your  own  ability  be- 
gin to  assert  itself.  Realize  that  you 
are  the  master  of  conditions;  that  you  are  a 
dynamo  that  is  continually  generating  suf- 
ficient will  power  to  do  great  things;  recognize 
that  you  are  in  possession, — not  your  habits, 
not  your  weaker  self,  but  the  ego, — the  "I," 
the  soul  of  you.  One  moment  after  doing  this 
you  will  begin  to  feel  its  potency,  you  will  feel 
the  blood  coursing  through  your  veins,  you 
will  sit  up  straighter,  you  will  lift  your  chest, 
you  will  become  conscious, — for  some  inex- 
plicable reason, — of  resources  in  which  you 
have  hitherto  had  little  confidence. 

No.  2.  Decide  what  you  want  to  do.  "Look 
before  you  leap"  is  an  old  but  sensible  admo- 
nition. Always  take  a  good  look  before  plung- 
ing in.  Exercise  your  judgment  and  do  not 
be  swayed  too  much  by  the  judgment  of 
others.  Learn  to  put  your  hand  to  the  plow 

260 


HOW  TO  BUILD  WILL  POWER 

and  not  turn  back.  Learn  to  control  your  will 
power  so  that  it  will  not  leap  into  action  until 
you  are  ready  for  it  to  do  so. 

When  you  have  done  this, — when  you  are 
sure  this  is  the  thing  you  want  to  do, — clinch 
your  mind  shut  and  lock  it.  Make  up  your 
mind  that  your  mind  is  made  up.  Leave  no 
reservations.  Don't  say,  "This  is  what  I  want 
to  do  but  perhaps  tomorrow  I  shall  feel  differ- 
ently." Don't  decide  until  you  are  as  sure  as 
it  is  humanly  possible  to  be,  and  then  stick. 

No.  3.  Gather  together  in  your  mind  all  the 
advantages  you  will  gain  from  doing  this 
thing.  .Visualize  yourself  as  doing  it.  See 
yourself  enjoying  the  comforts,  spending  the 
money  it  would  bring,  meeting  the  friends,  the 
pleasurable  situations,  accepting  the  honors, 
reaping  all  the  rewards  that  it  would  bring. 

Say  that  the  thing  upon  which  you  have 
bent  your  will  is  a  college  education.  Keep 
yourself  reminded  of  the  many  advantages  of 
a  college  education.  Picture  to  yourself  the 
friendships  you  would  make,  the  learning  you 
would  acquire,  the  person  you  would  become 
with  this  new  development.  See  yourself  in 
college.  Picture  yourself  as  going  through 
that  four  years,  from  your  freshman  days  to 
your  cap-and-gown-days.  Let  your  mind 

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PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

dwell  on  the  joys  of  intellectual  growth,  the 
fun  you  will  have  in  athletic  sports,  general 
college  activities, — everything  from  spreads  to 
"exams."  Remind  yourself  that  the  experi- 
ences of  those  four  years  will  change  your  life, 
will  open  the  doors  of  opportunity  and  ro- 
mance. Picture  to  yourself  the  upstanding, 
clear-eyed,  capable  young  person  you  are  go- 
ing to  be  at  the  end  of  those  four  years, 
equipped  with  learning  to  meet  the  world. 

No.  4.  Gather  together  in  your  mind  all  the 
penalties  and  punishments  that  would  come 
from  not  doing  this  thing  you  wish  to  do. 
Dwell  on  them.  Paint  them  in  their  darkest 
colors.  Picture  to  yourself  the  embarrass- 
ments and  humiliations  which  will  accrue  as 
a  result  of  not  going  to  college.  Think  of  the 
opportuinties  for  promotion,  advancement, — 
financial  and  otherwise, — which  you  will  be 
cheated  out  of  if  you  do  not  get  a  college  edu- 
cation. Recall  how  much  less  self-confidence 
the  man  without  a  college  education  feels; 
think  how  this  handicap  will  affect  your  life; 
realize  that  you  are  going  to  miss  pleasures 
and  joys  for  which  nothing  can  compensate. 

No.  5.  Announce  your  plans  to  those  who 
are  truly  interested  in  you.  I  *rant  you  to 
do  this  because  it  gives  your  pride  a  powerful 

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HOW  TO  BUILD  WILL  POWER 

incentive;  having  once  declared  you  are  going 
to  college,  you  have  something  to  live  up  to. 

One  of  the  most  conspicuous  tricks  of  your 
weaker  self  is  to  get  you  not  to  let  your  friends 
know  of  your  good  resolutions.  You  give 
yourself  all  manner  of  reasons  for  keeping 
still,  but  the  real  fact  is  that  this  miserable 
little  weaker  side  of  your  nature  has  whispered 
to  you,  "Don't  tell  anybody,  then  if  you  fail 
it  will  be  no  disgrace."  This  gives  you  every 
chance  to  lose.  It  is  leaving  the  back  door  un- 
locked, ready  for  your  desertion  if  you  become 
too  cowardly  to  go  out  the  front. 

I  do  not  mean  by  this  that  you  should  go 
about  publishing  your  plans  to  everybody. 
Never  tell  them  to  any  but  those  who  are  in 
sympathy  with  you,  who  like  you  and  are  in- 
terested in  you.  You  will  then  not  only  be  im- 
pelled to  do  what  you  have  set  out  to  do  in 
order  to  keep  their  respect,  but  will  be  inspired 
by  their  belief  in  you  and  their  desire  to  see 
you  win. 

No.  6.  Weld  the  thought  of  doing  to  the 
action  of  doing  by  the  only  thing  that  ever 
welds  anything, — feeling.  Watch  a  blacksmith 
when  he  is  trying  to  weld  together  two  pieces 
of  iron.  He  builds  a  fire  under  them.  Mere 
thoughts  are  cold  things,  but  feelings  are  alive. 

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PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

Let  yourself  feel  intensely  about  this  thing 
you  want  to  do.  The  white  heat  of  emotion 
will  compel  you  to  act.  Feeling  arouses  the 
will,  and  the  will  stimulates  action.  These  two 
act  and  react  upon  each  other.  They  should 
work  in  unison.  The  trained  individual  has 
both  under  control,  pulling  together  like  a  well 
trained  team. 

No.  7.  Avoid  all  friends,  situations  and  con- 
ditions that  would  interfere  with  what  you 
wish  to  do.  If  you  have  been  associating  with 
superficial  people,  who  care  for  nothing  but 
dances,  movies,  parties,  and  fun,  and  who  are 
out  of  sympathy  with  the  idea  of  a  college  edu- 
cation, begin  to  give  them  less  of  your  time. 
Understand  them,  give  them  tolerance,  never 
feel  bigoted  or  superior.  But  learn  how  to  stay 
away  from  them. 

Refuse  to  make  engagements  with  anyone 
whose  ideals,  standards  and  convictions  would 
pull  you  away  from  your  aim.  Remember  the 
legend  of  Ulysses,  who  induced  his  companions 
to  stop  up  their  ears  with  wax  lest  they  be 
fascinated  by  the  song  of  the  sirens.  It  is  much 
easier  to  listen  to  the  songs  of  the  sirens  of 
idleness,  ease,  pleasure  and  dissipation.  But 
it  eventually  takes  you  down,  not  up. 

No.  8.  Put  yourself  in  the  way  of  friends, 
264 


HOW  TO  BUILD  WILL  POWER 
situations  and  conditions  conducive  to  your 
aim.  This  is  not  difficult.  If  you  are  truly  in- 
terested in  a  college  education  you  will  attend 
the  lectures,  visit  the  libraries,  and  frequent  the 
other  places  where  college  people,  and  those 
who  hope  to  be  college  people,  are  to  be  found. 
You  will  soon  make  new  friends,  friends  who 
will  aid  you,  encourage  you,  inspire  you. 

If  it  is  necessary  that  you  leave  the  town  in 
which  you  live,  or  even  your  family,  in  order 
to  find  congenial  companions,  do  so.  Go  any- 
where, at  any  cost,  to  surround  yourself  with 
the  things  which  shall  help  and  not  hinder. 

No.  9.  Start  today.  Take  at  least  one  step 
toward  your  goal.  Don't  try  to  take  too  long 
a  step.  Start  at  the  easiest  end  of  this  thing 
you  wish  to  do.  Do  not  attempt  the  hardest 
part  at  first,  only  be  sure  that  you  do  some- 
thing right  now.  Do  not  attempt  to  start  to 
college  today,  but  do  not  let  the  sun  go  down 
without  at  least  writing  a  letter,  looking  up  a 
catalogue  or  doing  some  other  thing  toward  a 
real  start. 

Do  not  let  the  enormity  of  your  task  dis- 
courage you.  The  greatest  struggle  is  always 
at  the  beginning,  so  start  slowly.  Gird  on  your 
armor,  grasp  your  sword,  but  don't  attempt  to 
finish  the  whole  fight  in  one  day.  Plan  to  in- 

265 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

crease  the  tasks  each  day.  Plan  to  do  some- 
thing bigger  and  bigger  each  week.  Do  not  be 
like  the  man  who  wanted  to  jump  the  ditch. 
Each  day  he  got  to  the  ditch  and  each  day  ran 
back  for  a  fresh  start. 

No.  10.  Do  this  thing  one  day  at  a  time. 
Most  of  those  who  fail  to  develop  will  power 
have  been  frightened  out  by  the  feeling  of  the 
"unendingness"  of  the  task.  Under  the  weight 
of  all  the  future,  they  succumbed  before  they 
started.  Don't  let  the  thought  of  the  "forever- 
ness"  enter  your  mind.  Stand  up  to  it  one  day 
at  a  time. 

Prof.  James  said,  "The  man  who  attempts  to 
do  only  today's  work  today  can  accomplish 
wonders."  It  is  the  convulsive  worker  who 
breaks  down.  It  is  the  man  who  lets  the 
thought  of  the  tomorrows  get  into  his  mind 
who  cannot  live  up  to  today. 

Never  be  in  a  hurry;  do  not  let  anxiety  and 
solicitude  for  results  terrorize  you.  Work  sys- 
tematically, —  economize  effort.  Waste  no 
time  regretting  the  past  or  fearing  the  future. 

No.  11.  Do  not  let  exceptions  occur.  Be- 
ware of  your  weaker  self  when  it  whispers, 
"You  have  proven  you  can  do  this,  now  let's 
take  a  little  vacation."  The  actual  interrup- 
tion would  not  always  do  you  harm.  It  is  the 

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HOW  TO  BUILD  WILL  POWER 
memory  of  the  exception  which  poisons.  It 
makes  you  lose  faith  in  yourself.  Having 
once  allowed  a  break  in  the  chain,  you  feel 
less  equal  to  building  a  strong  one.  You  are 
ashamed;  you  are  conscience-stricken;  you 
are  fully  aware,  after  it  is  done,  that  it  was 
your  weaker  self  that  induced  you  to  do  it. 
This  realization  is  disintegrating.  Remember, 
one  interruption  can  undo  the  good  work  of 
weeks.  It  is  like  a  ball  of  twine.  The  care- 
lessness of  an  instant  can  unwind  it,  and  it 
takes  a  long  time  to  rewind. 

No.  12.  As  a  reminder  of  your  will  power, 
let  every  good  thought  for  the  first  few  days 
express  itself  in  some  kind  of  action.  At  the 
same  time,  see  how  many  unpleasant  or  un- 
kind thoughts  you  can  inhibit.  Every  good 
thought  which  evaporates  without  action 
leaves  you  weaker,  while  the  conquering  of  an 
unkind  thought  gives  you  strength. 

No.  13.  Every  day  do  something  you  do 
not  like  to  do.  Everyone,  even  the  weak- 
est, can  do  things  they  like  to  do, — pleasant, 
agreeable  things.  But  these  are  not  the  proof 
of  real  will  power. 

Nothing  will  encourage  you  more,  nothing 
will  prove  to  you  your  own  powers  like  com- 
pelling yourself  to  do  something  disagreeable. 

267 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

Prof.  James  advised  his  students  systematic- 
ally to  exercise  themselves  in  the  direction 
of  doing  some  particular  things  for  no  other 
reason  than  that  they  preferred  not  to  do 
them,  even  if  the  task  be  nothing  more  than 
giving  up  one's  seat  in  a  street  car.  He  said: 
"Doing  daily  a  disagreeable  thing  is  like  pay- 
ing the  premiums  of  insurance  on  one's  prop- 
erty. It  is  laying  up  reserve  resources  for  the 
day  of  need." 

But  it  is  even  more  necessary  that  you 
keep  up  your  will  insurance.  Your  property 
may  never  burn  down,  but  the  emergencies 
in  your  own  life  are  inevitable.  Only  the  man 
who  has  trained  himself  to  do  the  hard  thing 
can  meet  that  emergency  when  it  arrives. 

James  said:  "The  men  who  have  attained 
great  success  have  in  nearly  every  case  so 
trained  their  wills  by  doing  things  whether 
they  liked  them  or  not  that  they  could  under- 
take difficult  or  disagreeable  tasks  with  a  min- 
imum of  effort.  They  have  acquired  the  hab- 
it." 

No.  14.  When  you  fail,  see  to  it  that  your 
wiU  never  condones  nor  consents.  Let  dis- 
gust for  yourself  fill  you.  But  not  discourage- 
ment. There  is  a  world  of  difference  between 
disgust  and  discouragement.  There  is  no  rea- 

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HOW  TO  BUILD  WILL  POWER 
son  for  discouragement.     Nothing  was  ever 
done  in  a  day. 

No.  15.  When  successful,  tell  yourself  and 
your  friends  of  the  little  victories  you  have 
achieved.  Do  not  be  conceited  about  it,  mere- 
ly tack  up  a  little  bulletin  in  your  own  mind. 
It  will  give  you  new  pride  in  yourself.  It  will 
give  your  friends  new  faith  in  you,  and  their 
faith  in  you  will  act  as  a  constant  urge  to  you. 

No.  16.  Avoid  all  stimulants.  They  slip 
the  bolt  off  your  will.  I  know  a  woman  who 
says  she  doesn't  dare  trust  herself  to  go  shop- 
ping after  she  has  had  black  coffee  for  lunch. 
"I  spend  money  like  a  drunken  sailor/'  she 
says.  Many  students  have  told  me  how  var- 
ious stimulants  affect  them,  and  it  is  always 
for  the  worst,  not  for  the  better. 

No.  17.  Keep  before  your  mind  the  mem- 
ory of  the  feelings  you  experienced  the  last 
time  you  failed.  Many  a  man  has  been  kept 
at  his  helm,  not  because  he  could  not  face  the 
prospect  of  his  failure,  but  because  he  could 
not  stand  a  repetition  of  the  sufferings  he 
underwent  at  his  previous  defeats. 

No.  18.  Keep  before  your  mind  the  mem- 
ories of  how  you  felt  when  you  won.  Live 
again  those  feelings  of  exultation,  glory  and 
triumph,  than  which  life  holds  no  greater  joy. 

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PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

No.  19.  Keep  your  mind  centered  on  the 
thing  you  wish  to  do.  No  matter  how  great 
a  break  may  have  occurred,  bring  it  back  and 
put  it  to  work  again.  Eventually  it  will  know 
better  than  to  wander  away. 

No.  20.  Set  aside  the  last  ten  minutes  of 
each  day  to  revisualize  your  desire,  to  live 
over  again  your  reasons  for  making  your  de- 
cision. 

One  of  the  best  aids  to  will  power  is  to 
make  a  list,  during  this  ten  minutes,  of  the 
things  to  do  next  day.  Look  over  this  list 
each  evening  and  scratch  off  those  done. 
Transfer  those  undone  to  the  next  day's  sheet. 
If  you  have  an  ounce  of  pride  you  cannot 
bear  to  leave  many  of  these  undone  tasks  to 
stare  you  in  the  face. 

No.  21.  Never  mistake  stubbornness  for 
strength.  Stubbornness  is  the  result  of  pre- 
judice, ignorance  or  misdirected  energy.  The 
stubborn  man  cannot  yield.  The  strong  man 
knows  that  yielding  is  sometimes  the  greatest 
proof  of  strength. 

The  Grand  Canyon  was  made  by  trickling 
drops  of  water.  Sometimes  it  is  necessary  to 
turn  slightly  aside  in  order  to  achieve  one's 
ultimate  goal,  just  as  the  little  drops  of  water 

270 


HOW  TO  BUILD  WILL  POWER 

had  to  turn  aside  and  wind  their  way  around 
the  pebbles,  rocks  and  boulders  in  the  con- 
struction of  that  sublimest  masterpiece. 

The  man  with  the  strong  will  knows  how  to 
yield.  He  knows  that  yielding  sometimes 
means  stepping  aside  to  get  a  better  view  or  a 
stronger  foothold.  The  stubborn  man  will 
not  bend  nor  stoop  and  often  his  stiff  attitude 
breaks  him.  A  willow  bends  when  a  storm  is 
on,  but  bobs  up  and  keeps  growing  after  it 
has  passed.  A  ship  has  to  turn  out  of  its 
course  to  avoid  rocks  and  icebergs. 

The  big  man  doesn't  push  ahead  into  the 
very  face  of  trouble  just  because  his  original 
path  pointed  that  way.  He  weaves,  winds, 
stoops,  climbs  over,  goes  around,  under,  and 
gets  by. 

No.  22.  Make  every  act  one  of  vigor.  Do 
not  do  anything  halfheartedly.  Do  not  hold 
back.  Play  fair  with  yourself.  Merely  going 
through  the  motions  of  what  you  have  decided 
to  do  is  cheating  yourself.  When  you  have 
decided  to  do  a  thing,  not  only  do  it  but  do  it 
well,  do  it  hard,  do  it  to  a  finish.  In  no  other 
way  can  the  maximum  of  strength  be  ac- 
quired. 

No.  23.  Keep  the  realization  that  you  are 
271 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

winning.  See  yourself  as  the  man  who  is  con- 
quering himself.  Never  admit  defeat. 

No.  24.  Do  not  relax  in  your  efforts.  When 
you  get  to  the  places  where  you  feel  incapable 
of  making  further  headway  just  then,  do  not 
give  up.  At  least  hold  your  own.  Be  like 
the  swimmer  who,  when  he  reaches  an  ad- 
verse tide,  manages  to  hold  himself  up  though 
he  may  make  no  progress. 

No.  25.  Note  with  what  surprising  ease 
you  do  these  things  which  you  considered 
were  going  to  be  hard. 

Keep  yourself  reminded  of  the  psychologi- 
cal fact  that  it  is  never  the  doing  of  a  thing 
that  makes  it  difficult;  it  is  our  anticipation  of 
it.  In  this  way  you  will  acquire  a  conscious- 
ness of  your  own  self-mastery. 

If  you  will  follow  these  rules  you  can  train 
the  vast  forces  of  your  mind  to  act  in  accord- 
ance with  your  will.  You  can  build  will 
power.  Thus,  and  thus  only,  have  all  things 
worth  while  been  done  in  this  world. 


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CHAPTER  VII 
HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 

"If  I  just  had  a  chance!"      There  are  chances  aplenty 
Right  close  to  our  fingertips,  day  after  day. 

For  each  opportunity  seized  there  are  twenty 
Overlooked  and  permitted  to  wander  away. 

And  while  we  are  waiting  for  some  one  to  offer 

Ways  for  winning  success  by  some  "push-button"  plan, 

With  the  splendid  rewards  she  is  eager  to  proffer, 
Opportunity  sighs:    "If  I  just  had  a  man!" 

HE  subject  of  money-making  is  an 
interesting  one  for  many  reasons. 
It  is  the  one  upon  which  more 
thoughts  are  centered,  about  which 
more  lies  are  told,  and  concerning  which  more 
deception  is  practiced  than  any  other  in  the 
world. 

All  of  us  want  to  make  money, — but  few 
people  will  admit  it. 

This  is  due  to  the  false  training  we  receive. 
From  early  childhood  we  are  taught  that  to 
want  money  is  an  ignominious  ambition;  that 
it  is  something  to  be  ashamed  of. 

Very  young  or  very  gullible  people  believe 
in  the  sincerity  of  those  who  preach  this 

273 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

doctrine,  but  at  along  about  eleven  years  they 
begin  to  wake  up.  They  discover  gradually 
that  the  double  standard  of  morals  is  nothing 
to  the  double  standard  of  money.  They  begin 
to  discover  that  underneath  all  the  piety  there 
runs  a  burning  desire  for  this  "root  of  all 
evil."  They  discover  later  that  those  who 
prate  oftenest,  loudest  and  longest  against 
money-making  have  an  eagle-eye  focused  on 
making  all  the  money  they  can  themselves. 

I  remember  I  was  about  nine  when  a  reali- 
zation of  it  came  to  me. 

One  Sunday  I  was  passing  the  collection 
basket  in  church,  as  a  substitute  for  one  of 
the  ushers  who  was  not  there  that  day. 

In  my  section  there  was  one  of  the  well-to- 
do  "pillars."  I  knew  he  would  drop  in 
enough  to  make  my  basket  total  as  much  as 
others,  because  I  had  heard  him  make  such 
feeling  talks  on  "the  higher  good,"  and  the 
sin  of  "seeking  the  things  of  this  world."  So 
I  was  looking  most  intently  for  his  donation. 

From  that  day  to  this  I  have  refused  to 
lean  too  heavily  on  "pillars."  He  put  in  a 
pewter  slug  the  size  of  a  fifty  cent  piece! 

If  you  have  read  this  book  carefully  up  to 
this  point  (which  you  have  not,  for  you  are 
reading  this  chapter  first!),  you  have  doubt- 

274 


HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 

less  noticed  I  do  not  deal  in  platitudes.  I  have 
not  once  said,  "Genius  is  an  infinite  capacity 
for  taking  pains/'  or  that  "Virtue  is  its  own 
reward." 

Having  sidestepped  these  popular  pitfalls 
thus  far,  I  am  going  to  see  if  I  can't  be  sincere 
with  you  to  the  end. 

I  want  to  make  money.  I  want  to  make 
lots  of  money  and  more  money  every  year. 
And  I  believe  I  will,  for  my  income  has  been 
increasing  annually  for  several  years,  due 
largely  to  the  fact  that  all  who  have  dealings 
with  me  advise  their  friends  to  patronize  me. 

When  I  ask  them  why  they  give  me  so 
much  free  advertising,  they  say,  "Because  you 
are  honest  with  us.  You  don't  try  to  catch 
us  with  this  modern  bait  about  'human  ser- 
vice.' This  makes  us  trust  you  at  the  start. 
At  the  finish  we  tell  our  friends  about  your 
lecture  courses  and  publications  because  we 
have  gotten  so  much  more  than  our  money's 
worth." 

I  relate  this  here  for  two  reasons.  First, 
because  I  believe  in  advertising,  and,  second, 
because  my  own  experience  has  proved  to  me 
that  it  is  neither  necessary  nor  advisable  to 
deceive  people  to  make  money. 

275 


\ 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

Therefore  the  first  rule  for  money-making 
is, — don't  lie  about  it. 

My  reason  for  this  first  reason  is, — if  you 
can  stand  bedrock  honesty — it  doesn't  pay. 

Other  people  are  just  as  smart  as  you  are. 
Don't  be  an  ostrich.  Don't  stick  your  head 
in  the  sand,  imagining  no  one  can  see  you. 
Everybody  is  on  to  you,  but  don't  worry.  He 
is  on  to  you  for  a  reason  which  gives  him 
nothing  on  you, — he  is  after  money  himself. 

The  poets  and  singers  praise  the  beauties  of 
poverty,  the  joys  of  the  simple  life  and  tell  us 
about  the  emptiness  of  riches.  But  even  as 
they  say  it,  they  are  wondering  where  they 
are  going  to  get  next  month's  rent  and  long- 
ing for  the  riches  they  condemn. 

There  is  no  glamour  over  poverty  except 
to  the  man  who  has  climbed  out  of  it.  There 
is  no  halo  around  hardship  except  to  him  who 
has  emancipated  himself  from  it. 

When  you  hear  rich  Mr.  So  and  So  declare 
he'd  'love  to  go  back  and  live  over  again  the 
early  days  when  he  was  poor,"  do  not  doubt 
him.  He  means  it.  He  thinks  what  he  wants 
is  the  struggle,  but  it  isn't.  It  is  only  that  he 
thinks  how  easily  he  could  bear  the  struggle 
with  today's  riches  in  mind.  He  feels  that 

276 


HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 

with  the  certain  knowledge  that  today's  riches 
were  on  the  way  he  could  stand  anything. 

One  can  stand  almost  anything  if  he  knows 
it  is  only  temporary.  Poverty  and  struggle 
have  a  glamour  around  them  only  when  you 
know  they  won't  last,  only  when  you  know 
the  reward  is  inevitable.  Then  the  thought 
of  the  reward  sustains.  The  millionaire  would 
not  for  anything  return  to  the  days  when  he 
had  to  save  pennies  if  the  fairy  godmother 
would  not  permit  him  to  take  along  the  cer- 
tainty of  today's  wealth. 

If  you  want  to  make  money,  don't  apol- 
ogize for  it. 

Sarah  H.  Young,  well  known  efficiency  ex- 
pert says:  "Wanting  what  money  brings  is 
a  laudable  ambition.  Nobody  wants  money 
for  its  own  sake.  Dollars,  as  dollars,  are  as 
valueless  as  so  many  pieces  of  iron. 

"We  want  what  money  represents — the 
comforts  it  will  provide,  die  freedom  it  as- 
sures, the  self-expression  it  guarantees. 

'The  desire  for  these  things  is  what  dis- 
tinguishes modern  men  and  women  from  cave 
men  and  women.  Without  the  urge  for  these 
things, — esthetic  surroundings,  self-expression 
and  individual  freedom, — civilization  would 
be  unknown.  We  would  still  be  living  in 

277 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

caves,  eating  raw  meat  from  the  bones  of 
wild  beasts.  There  would  be  no  art,  no  lit- 
erature, no  education,  no  invention,  no  human 
liberty,  no  ideals. 

"These  are  the  hungers  and  cravings  that 
have  urged  man  up  from  the  sod;  that  have 
impelled  him  to  face  hardships,  danger  and 
death, — and  thus  grow." 

No  organism  develops  except  under  pres- 
sure. We  are  so  full  of  laziness  and  inert- 
ness that  there  would  have  been  no  develop- 
ment had  it  not  been  for  this  pressure  from 
within.  There  would  be  no  such  thing  as  evo- 
lution. 

The  stage  to  which  any  creature  has  evol- 
ved can  be  pretty  accurately  measured  by  his 
ambitions  and  aspirations.  The  man  who  is 
content  to  live  in  poverty,  dirt  and  sordid- 
ness, — the  man  who  is  willing  to  work  all  his 
life  at  some  other  man's  game  instead  of  his 
own,  does  not  greatly  advance  civilization. 

The  man  who  turns  his  back  on  the  lure  of 
laziness  and  faces  the  battle  with  the  world, 
as  every  man  does  who  makes  money,  proves 
thereby  his  higher  degree  of  evolution. 

To  such  men  and  women  we  owe  the  culti- 
vation of  the  fields,  the  clearing  of  the  forests, 
the  building  of  cities,  the  invention  of  the 

278 


HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 
steam  engine,  the  telegraph,  telephone,  wire- 
less, aviation,  all  the  vehicles  of  human  prog- 
ress. 

Because  a  few  safe  blowers,  capitalists,  etc., 
have  used  their  brains  to  get  money  uneth- 
ically does  not  alter  these  facts. 

Every  great  thing  is  carried  to  the  point  of 
abuse  by  some.  Money-making  on  the  stu- 
pendous scale  practiced  by  a  few  multi-mil- 
lionaires no  more  discredits  the  normal  money- 
making  instinct  than  the  over-eating  of  a  few 
gluttons  discredits  the  instinct  of  eating.  All 
extremes  are  dangerous  to  the  individual  and 
to  the  race. 

For  both  these  reasons  money-making  as  it 
is  practiced  today  by  combines,  to  the  en- 
slavement of  the  workers  and  the  fleecing  of 
the  consumer,  must  be  and  will  be  abolished. 

This  lesson  is  no  brief  for  the  man  who  gets 
money  dishonestly,  be  he  porch-climber  or 
magnate.  This  lesson  is  for  all  who  desire  the 
best  life  can  give  us,  who  believe  we  are  en- 
titled to  the  best  and  who  are  willing  to  win  it 
in  the  open  by  honorable  methods.  It  is  for 
those  who  realize  that  nothing  worth  while 
comes  free.  It  is  for  those  who  realize,  how- 
ever, that  everything,  even  money,  comes  eas- 
ier than  we  anticipate,  if  we  only  go  after  it. 

279 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

Hubbard  said:  "Blessed  is  he  who  is  not 
looking  for  a  soft  snap  for  he  is  the  only  one 
who  shall  find  it." 

Since  there  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun, 
you  will  find  little  that  is  new  in  these  rules. 
If  you  are  expecting  to  be  let  into  some  won- 
derful secret  whereby  you  may  make  money 
over  night  in  an  easy,  leisurely  way,  you  are 
booked  for  disappointment. 

There  are  no  wonderful  secrets  about  mak- 
ing money.  There  are  certainly  no  easy,  care- 
free, comfortable  roads  to  the  land  of  Wealth. 
This  is  the  first  thing  you  must  realize. 

The  rules  for  making  money  are  simple 
rules,  but  they  are  not  easy  to  follow.  It 
takes  stamina  to  make  money.  It  takes  back- 
bone and  jawbone  rather  than  wishbone.  It 
takes  will  power. 

But  do  not  let  this  depress  you.  "Will 
power,"  as  Arnold  Bennett  said,  "Is  the  chief 
thing  that  differentiates  you  from  the  cat  by 
the  fire." 

If  you  prefer  the  cat-by-the-fire  existence  to 
the  rich  rewards  of  effort,  give  up  this  chap- 
ter. Also  give  up  the  hope  of  ever  getting 
anything  worth  while  in  this  world. 

Above  I  told  you  that  the  first  step  in  mak- 
ing money  is  to  be  straightforward  concerning 

280 


HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 
your  money-making  aspirations.    The  money- 
making  aspiration  is  the  mark  of  the  man  who 
has  evolved  beyond  the  cat-by-the-fire  stage. 

The  money  a  man  makes  is  one  of  the 
truest  measures  of  his  service  to  mankind. 

The  world  is  full  of  people  who  want  all 
kinds  of  things,  who  need  all  kinds  of  things 
for  material  and  spiritual  advancement.  They 
stand  ready  and  anxious  to  pay  in  real  dollars 
and  other  rewards  the  man  or  woman  who  will 
supply  those  needs.  Whenever  you  see  a  pen- 
niless man  you  see  a  man  who  is  not  produc- 
ing much,  if  anything,  for  the  satisfaction  of 
these  needs,  the  alleviation  of  these  sufferings, 
or  inspiration  for  the  battles  of  the  people  OF 
TODAY. 

Because  they  are  the  most  important  words 
I  have  used  up  to  this  time,  let  me  impress 
upon  you  the  two  words  in  that  last  sentence. 
You  may  paint  the  pictures,  write  the  poems, 
preach  the  religious  and  economic  doctrine  for 
which  future  generations  will  immortalize 
you,  but  these  achievements  will  never  bring 
you  financial  independence  unless  the  world 
OF  TODAY  wants  them. 

"Fame  is  the  food  of  the  tomb."  The  man 
who  prefers  food  today  to  these  ashes  of  im- 
mortality must  do  something,  say  something, 

281 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

make  something  or  sell  something  THE  PEO- 
PLE OF  HIS  DAY  AND  AGE  want  They 
will  pay  money  only  for  what  they  want,  not 
for  what  future  generations  will  want. 

That  "Three  cities  claimed  Homer  dead 
through  which  the  living  Homer  begged  his 
bread"  is  tragic,  but  just  as  true  today  as  it 
was  three  thousand  years  ago. 

The  roads  of  yesterday  are  strewn  with  the 
bodies  of  martyrs  whose  works  vastly  benefit 
us.  We  are  today  martyring  other  men  and 
women  equally  good,  equally  great,  whose 
ideas  and  productions  will  vastly  advance  pos- 
terity. We  are  starving  some  of  them  to  death 
just  as  our  predecessors  starved  the  good  and 
great  of  their  day. 

All  this  is  a  sad  commentary,  but  bemoan- 
ing it  does  not  alter  human  nature.  The  man 
who  wishes  to  *iake  sufficient  money  to  ob- 
tain the  refinements,  self-expression  and  free- 
dom he  craves  while  he  is  still  alive  to  enjoy 
M  them  must  produce  something  this  generation 
wants.  He  must  not  ask  that  it  pay  him  for 
a  thing  its  great-great-grandchildren  will  want. 

Each  generation  insists  on  spending  its 
money  for  the  things  that  meet  its  particular 
needs,  and  leaves  its  descendants  to  pay  their 

282 


HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 

own  bills  when  they  get  here.  That  the  great 
poet,  painter,  reformer  or  teacher  will  not  live 
that  long  makes  no  difference. 

"Besides,"  human  nature  argues,  "how  do 
we  know  that  posterity  will  want  what  this 
man  has  to  offer?  Only  time  can  tell  whether 
he  is  right  or  wrong.  There  is  no  way  of  dis- 
tinguishng  between  the  false  and  the  true 
gods.  We  will  leave  it  to  the  future." 

The  false  ones  pass;  the  true  have  laurels 
laid  on  their  graves  down  through  the  ages. 

This  lesson  is  for  the  man  and  woman  who 
believes  that  it  is  as  worthy  to  meet  the  needs 
of  today's  children  as  those  of  tomorrow's, 
and  that  the  benefactors  of  mankind  have  a 
right  to  the  good  things  with  which  God  has 
filled  the  world. 

Keep  your  eyes,  ears  and  mind  open.  Find 
out  what  the  world  wants, — ihe  trend  of  the 
times, — what  the  latest  needs  are  from  neck- 
wear to  aviation,  and  see  if  you  can't  devise 
something,  improve  something,  invent  some- 
thing, organize  something,  or  promote  some- 
thing to  meet  these  needs. 

To  do  this,  recognize  the  fact  that  you  were 
born  with  talents  for  doing  some  of  these  much 
easier  than  others.  Find  out  what  these  in- 

283 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

born  trends  are, — what  you  are  best  fitted  for, 
— and  then  capitalize  them. 

Don't  be  afraid  of  an  idea  because  it  is  your 
own  idea.  As  Emerson  said,  "A  man  dis- 
cards his  thoughts  simply  because  they  are 
his." 

All  the  big  money  is  made  by  the  men  who 
are  willing  to  take  at  least  some  risk  and 
blaze  trails.  Don't  wait  till  you  see  others 
breaking  the  trail  before  you  bring  forth  your 
vision,  for  if  you  do,  you  get  what  followers 
always  get, — the  leavings. 

The  big  rewards  never  go  to  those  who  seek 
the  sheltering  safety  of  the  second  trench,  no 
matter  how  hard  they  may  actually  work 
after  they  start.  Great  rewards  are  never 
given  for  work  but  for  daring. 

Alexander  Graham  Bell,  inventor  of  the  tel- 
ephone, was  asked  what  he  would  say  were 
he  asked  to  put  into  twenty  words  his  best 
advice  to  young  men  who  wished  to  make 
money.  He  said :  "I  would  say  to  young  men 
and  young  women,  'Get  an  idea  of  your  own, 
stick  to  it,  and  put  all  your  heart  and  soul  into 
it  every  day/  ' 

Cultivate  your  initiative.  The  world  re- 
serves its  supreme  rewards  for  but  one  thing 
— initiative. 

284 


HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 

The  next  big  step  is  to  eliminate  worry 
about  money.  Turn  back  to  Chapter  II  of  this 
volume  and  learn  exactly  how  to  do  it. 

A  common  sense  care  for  your  financial 
future  is  necessary,  but  worry  over  it  only  de- 
creases your  financial  ability.  In  these  days 
of  keen  competition,  with  everybody  else 
wanting  the  money  you  are  after,  the  man 
who  gets  it  is  the  one  whose  mind  is  given  to 
making  it,  not  worrying  for  fear  he  won't 
make  it. 

The  man  whose  attention  is  centered  on  the 
fear  of  poverty,  brings  about  the  very  poverty 
he  fears.  Your  actions  match  your  predom- 
inant thoughts.  The  man  whose  thoughts  are 
of  poverty  acts  like  poverty.  Nobody  dares 
to  trust  a  high-salaried  job  to  him. 

High  salaries  are  never  paid  for  manual 
work.  They  are  paid  to  the  men  who  do 
effective  mental  work, — thinking  out  con- 
structive ideas. 

Now  the  man  whose  mental  machine  is 
clogged  up  with  poverty- worries  is  not  in  good 
running  order.  What  you  accomplish  is  due 
to  the  working  out  of  ideas. 

A  great  financier  said  to  me  once,  "From  the 
neck  down  a  man  is  worth  $3  a  day.  From  the 

285 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
neck  up  a  man  may  be  worth  anywhere  from 
$10,000  to  several  hundred  thousand  dollars 
a  year." 

Another  millionaire  is  fond  of  saying,  "The 
difference  between  the  hod  carrier  and  the 
$50,000-a-year  man  is  that  the  hod  carrier 
works  his  hod  and  the  other  man  works  his 
head." 

A  friend  of  J.  Pierpont  Morgan  once  said 
to  him,  "I  need  a  man  with  ideas.  If  you 
should  find  such  a  man  and  will  send  him  to 
me  I  will  pay  him  $50,000  a  year."  "If  I  find 
that  man,"  said  Morgan,  "one  who  can  be  eyes 
and  ears  for  me  when  I'm  not  there  you  will 
never  lay  eyes  on  him,  for  I  shall  pay  him 
$100,000  a  year." 

Right  here  is  a  good  place  to  tell  you  a 
great  psychological  law: 

Ideas  come  to  us  as  the  result  of  concen- 
trating on  the  thing  we  want.  I  don't  mean 
that  you  must  cut  yourself  off  from  your 
friends  and  family,  shut  yourself  up  in  a  quiet 
room  and  fasten  your  conscious  mind  on  what 
you  want,  though  a  few  moments  of  this  daily 
is  most  effective. 

I  mean  rather  the  constant  thinking  in  the 
back  of  your  mind  about  the  thing  you  want, 
plus  a  striving  after  it. 

286 


HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 

Phychologists  have  named  this  chamber  in 
the  back  of  your  mind  the  subconscious.  It 
is  your  "silent  partner."  It  takes  orders  from 
you.  It  will  work  on  whatever  subject  you 
wish.  What  is  more,  it  will  work  on  that 
subject  until  you  tell  it  to  stop. 

Your  subconscious  is  about  90  per  cent  of 
your  mind.  When  you  worry,  this  great 
working  force  is  expended  in  negative,  de- 
structive work.  All  of  its  strength  is  used  up 
in  this  way.  There  is  then  none  left  with 
which  to  plan  out  the  things  you  want. 

If  you  expect  to  get  what  you  want,  instead 
of  what  you  fear,  change  the  standing  order 
you  have  given  to  your  subconscious.  Instead 
of  letting  it  spend  its  time  loafing  in  the  movie 
theatre  of  your  mind, — in  that  chamber  of 
horrors  where  your  fears  are  on  parade, — or- 
der it  to  come  out  into  the  sunshine  right  now 
and  get  busy  figuring  out  ways  and  means  to 
get  what  you  want. 

If  you  are  worried  everybody  knows  it 
Nothing  fails  like  failure.  Stop  giving  failure 
thoughts  a  place  in  your  mental  power  house. 

Study  the  successful  man.  You  will  note 
that  under  all  circumstances  he  radiates  suc- 
cess. He  does  not  always  have  the  material 
facts  and  reasons  justifying  it.  But  material 

287 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

things  are  born  of  spiritual  things,  and  the 
man  who,  in  the  days  of  no  business,  keeps  up 
a  successful  front  ultimately  has  a  successful 
business. 

In  this  connection  we  can  mention  the  mat- 
ter of  personal  appearance  and  its  influence  on 
success.  A  young  man  once  asked  an  Ameri- 
can millionaire  how  he  should  dress  to  be  suc- 
cessful. 

"As  though  you  were  already  successful," 
he  answered.  And  that  is  the  law  of  self-con- 
fidence and  of  all  success, — to  act  the  part  if 
you  want  to  make  it  real. 

The  effect  that  your  dress,  your  grooming 
and  your  general  appearance  have  on  you  is 
fully  as  important  as  its  effect  on  others. 

No  one  has  ever  yet  fully  defined  the  psy- 
chology of  dress,  but  it  is  certain  there  is  a 
mysterious  relationship  between  one's  per- 
sonal appearance  and  his  self-respect.  It  not 
only  helps  or  hinders  success  but  helps  or 
hinders  character  and  moral  courage. 

"Clean  linen  is,"  as  a  great  writer  once  said, 
"a  source  of  spiritual  strength  second  only  to 
that  of  a  clean  conscience."  I  know  a  Mil- 
waukee woman  who  will  not  meet  anyone  she 
wishes  to  impress  without  a  red  rose  and  im- 
maculate white  gloves. 

288 


HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 

One  of  the  most  successful  men  of  my  ac- 
quaintance tells  me  that  whenever  he  has  a 
big  deal  to  put  through,  even  if  it  comes  in 
the  middle  of  the  day,  he  goes  home,  takes  a 
shower  bath,  shaves  and  dresses  inroughout 
with  fresh  garments.  "This  may  sound  silly 
to  you,"  he  said.  "I  laugh  at  myself  for  doing 
it,  but  I  have  found  it  pays." 

Even  if  you  are  not  like  this  man,  and  do 
not  see  the  importance  of  dress,  you  must  take 
it  into  consideration. 

If  you  are  not  naturally  particular  about 
yourself;  if  you  are  inclined  to  be  a  little 
slack  or  slovenly;  if  you  are  careless  one  or 
two  mornings  a  week  and  hurry  off  to  work 
without  the  usual  touches  to  your  toilet,  you 
are  paying  a  high  price  for  it. 

You  cannot  afford  this  handicap.  Dress 
makes  a  tremendous  difference  in  your  chances 
for  success.  Don't  ignore  it.  One  of  the  best 
investments  you  can  make  is  in  putting  up 
a  good  appearance. 

Say  what  you  will  about  the  unimportance 
of  clothes  in  comparison  with  the  man  him- 
self, we  all  realize  that  our  clothes  do  cut  a 
big  figure  in  peoples'  estimate  of  us.  We 
know  that  the  impression  other  people  get  of 
us  has  a  far-reaching  influence  on  our  lives. 

289 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
Clothes  play  a  leading  part  in  our  general  ap- 
pearance and  our  general  appearance  is  re- 
sponsible for  a  big  part  of  that  impression. 

Clothes  do  not  make  the  man,  but  good 
clothes  have  got  many  a  man  a  good  job  that 
he  never  would  have  had  otherwise.  And  a 
man  with  a  good  job  has  a  chance  to  become 
a  better  man. 

Your  personal  appearance,  your  dress,  your 
manner,  your  grooming,  your  haircut  and  hair 
dress  are  the  front  windows  which  advertise, 
as  all  show  windows  do,  the  stock  of  goods 
inside. 

The  way  a  merchant  displays  his  goods  is 
known  to  be  the  first  step  in  salesmanship. 
If  his  windows  are  filled  with  soiled,  out-of- 
date  wares,  if  they  do  not  indicate  care,  sys- 
tem and  order,  you  expect  to  find  the  same 
characteristics  inside. 

Now  you  are  a  salesman.  Every  person  in 
the  world  is  a  salesman  of  something,  whether 
he  is  selling  commodities  or  not. 

You  are  anxious  to  succeed;  you  wish  to 
get  a  good  position, — in  other  words,  sell  your 
services, — you  want  to  make  the  most  of 
yourself, — that  is,  market  your  abilities  most 
effectively  and  for  the  highest  possible  price; 

290 


HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 
you  want  friendship,  love  and  marriage.     All 
love  and  friendship  are  exchanges,  and  there- 
fore a  kind  of  salesmanship. 

Where  people  place  you  in  their  estimation 
has  a  powerful  effect  on  your  career.  They 
place  an  estimate  upon  you,  consciously  or  un- 
consciously, the  instant  they  lay  eyes  on  you, 
and  it  is  never  as  easy  to  change  that  estimate 
afterward  as  it  would  have  been  to  make  the 
right  impression  the  first  time. 

Because  your  personal  appearance  is  the 
first  thing  people  see  about  you  it  should  be 
worthy  of  you,  of  your  best  and  highest  self. 
I  do  not  mean  extravagantly  handsome  dress; 
I  mean  the  opposite, — refined,  inconspicuous 
but  tasteful  dress, — and  perfect  cleanliness. 

Because  the  eye  is  the  favorite  sense-mes- 
senger and  the  quickest,  you  must  first  please 
the  eye  of  the  other  fellow.  Then  you  must 
please  his  ear,  and  later,  if  you  get  past  these 
boys  in  the  front  office,  he  may  give  you  a 
chance  to  prove  your  worth, — to  show  him 
who  and  what  you  are. 

Many  a  superior  man,  and  countless  super- 
ior women,  have  failed  miserably  because  they 
never  passed  muster  with  these  under-secretar- 
ies. 

291 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

Many  a  man  has  failed  because  he  tried  to 
be  too  economical.  He  did  not  keep  fresh- 
ened up  with  clean  linen;  he  attempted  to 
save  on  his  clothes  by  having  them  mended 
and  pressed  when  he  should  have  gone  with- 
out food  if  necessary  to  buy  a  new  suit. 

Wearing  shabby  clothing  and  soiled  collars 
to  save  laundry  bills  has  cost  hundreds  of  men 
their  chances  for  promotion  and  ease. 

Few  people  realize  what  a  tremendous  in- 
fluence appearances  have  on  their  future. 
They  do  not  realize  that  when  they  apply  for 
a  position  the  mind  of  their  would-be  employer 
is  working  at  lightning-like  speed,  sizing  up 
whether  or  not  this  applicant  would  be  an  as- 
set or  a  liability  to  his  business.  No  matter 
how  many  letters  of  introduction  you  carry 
nor  who  has  written  them,  they  will  not  get 
you  the  place  if  your  personal  appearance  is 
a  poor  advertisement  for  him. 

In  Philadelphia  I  saw  a  sign  over  the  em- 
ployment manager's  window  which  read,  "No 
seedy-looking  people  wanted  here."  That  this 
must  have  been  a  cruel  blow  to  the  poor  seedy 
ones  who  most  needed  the  jobs  didn't  alter  the 
fact. 

And  I  thought  as  I  looked  at  it,  'The  world 
292 


HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 

is  like  that;  it  has  this  announcement  over  its 
doorway  in  letters  so  big  that  all  who  run  may 
read/' 

I  do  not  say  it  is  right.  I  say  most  emphat- 
ically it  is  not  right.  The  standards  are 
wrong.  But  they  are  here. 

My  task  in  this  lesson  is  not  to  discuss 
ethics, — I  reserve  that  for  another  book, — but 
to  show  you  how  to  achieve  happiness  and 
success  here  and  now,  in  this  world  in  which 
you  live. 

As  Time  is  measured,  you  have  but  a  day 
to  live  and  the  world  is  not  going  to  be  made 
right  in  a  day. 

If  you  would  be  a  true  success,  lift  your 
voice  for  the  ideal  world.  Keep  working  for 
something  better  for  all  humanity  but  prove 
your  right  to  lead  humanity  by  fulfilling  its 
requirements  today. 

If  you  honestly  want  to  better  the  world, 
meet  the  tests  it  gives  today,  and  tomorrow 
it  will  listen  to  you. 

If  you  have  a  message  and  not  just  a 
grouch  you  are  willing  to  pass  through  the 
world's  acid  test,  —  the  test  of  personal 
achievement, — to  earn  the  chance  to  deliver 
that  message. 

293 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

If  you  do  not  care  enough  for  it  thus  to  sac- 
rifice yourself  you  can't  blame  the  world  for 
not  being  willing  to  sacrifice  itself. 

The  world  is  a  big  place.  There  are  bil- 
lions of  people  in  it.  To  win  their  belief  in 
you,  you  must  set  them  the  example.  You 
must  believe  in  yourself. 

I  know  a  young  man  who  has  been  trying 
for  months  to  get  a  situation.  He  is  always 
turned  down.  He  does  not  understand  why. 
I  could  quickly  tell  him.  He  doesn't  talk  like 
a  success.  He  doesn't  look  like  one.  He  is 
trying  to  dispose  of  something  which  he  does 
not  present  in  an  attractive  form.  People  feel 
that  he  doesn't  believe  in  it  himself. 

Your  prospective  employer,  buyer,  or  friend 
is  watching  you  with  an  "eagle  eye."  He  is 
looking  for  victory  in  your  face, — not  defeat; 
he  is  looking  for  evidences  of  ability, — not  in- 
competence. 

Every  one  is  after  100  per  cent  men  and 
women  and  will  take  no  others  if  they  can 
possibly  avoid  it.  Every  employer  wants 
cheerful,  optimistic,  self-confident  employes 
around  him;  men  and  women  who  bear  the 
earmarks  of  efficiency;  who  are  good  walking 
ads  for  his  business.  His  trained  eye  tells 

294 


HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 
him  instantly  whether  you  are  going  to  im- 
press his  customers  as  a  winner  or  a  loser.  To 
get  a  good  position  you  have  got  to  convince 
your  prospective  employer  that  he  will  have  a 
prize  in  you. 

One  of  the  biggest  American  writers  has 
said:  "Talent  is  sure  of  a  market,  but  it  must 
not  cower  at  home  and  expect  to  be  sought 
out. 

"There  is  a  good  deal  of  can't  in  the  criti- 
cism of  the  aggressive,  forward-pushing  man. 
It  is  complained  that  retiring  men  of  worth 
are  passed  over  with  neglect.  Sad  as  this  is 
for  the  retiring,  worth-while  people,  it  usually 
happens  that  the  forward-pushing  men  have 
the  qualities  of  activity  and  accomplishment 
without  which  worth  is  a  gold  mine  that  can't 
be  operated.  A  barking  dog  is  sometimes 
more  valuable  than  a  sleeping  lion." 

"Egotist"  is  the  term  you  like  to  apply  to 
the  man  who  has  done  more  than  you.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  is  probably  only  egoism  that 
has  placed  him  where  he  is. 

If  his  being  there  worries  you  so  much  that 
you  find  yourself  constantly  accusing  him,  the 
chances  are  that  your  own  egotism  is  at  the 
bottom  of  your  resentment. 

295 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

Jealousy  is  the  confession  of  your  own  in- 
feriority. 

A  certain  amount  of  good  healthy  egotism 
is  necessary  to  the  success  of  any  man  or 
woman.  As  long  as  it  is  not  used  to  belittle 
others  it  is  a  good  thing.  It  acts  as  the  spur 
without  which  few  great  steps  would  have 
been  made  in  the  world's  progress. 

In  these  busy  days  men  have  no  time  to 
hunt  about  in  obscure  corners  for  retiring 
merit.  They  find  it  more  effective  to  take  a 
man  at  his  own  estimate  till  time  shall  prove 
otherwise. 

The  world  admires  manliness  and  courage. 
It  admires  womanliness,  and  true  womanli- 
ness in  this  day  and  age  means  the  self-confi- 
dence of  the  winner. 

The  world  has  little  use  for  the  timid, 
whether  male  or  female.  It  passes  by  the 
self-effacing  people  who  have  an  air  of  apolo- 
gizing for  living. 

Leaders  in  every  walk  of  life  must  have 
lieutenants  who  also  know  how  to  lead. 
Therefore  they  select  for  the  big  places  the 
people  of  positive  mentalities, — men  who  rad- 
iate victory,  who  express  confidence  in  them- 
selves: who  can  get  things  done,  who  can  put 

296 


HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 
big  undertakings  through,  who  have  the  tri- 
umphant attitude. 

Charles  M.  Schwab,  an  expert  in  estimating 
and  measuring  ability,  says:  "I  have  great 
faith  in  those  who  have  great  faith  in  them- 
selves. I  know  that  the  men  who  fear  them- 
selves are  not  fit  for  responsibility." 

If  you  look  as  though  you  had  lost  your 
nerve,  your  faith  in  yourself,  your  self-confi- 
dence, no  one  is  going  to  give  you  a  respon- 
sible position.  It  is  human  to  have  faith  in 
those  who  have  faith  in  themselves. 

Regardless  of  whether  you  have  yet  won 
out  or  not,  if  you  are  a  conqueror  in  your 
own  mind,  if  you  have  a  victorious  manner, 
other  people  will  believe  in  you. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  you  tag  yourself  with 
things  bespeaking  uncertainty,  doubt  or  tim- 
idity, the  law  will  work  the  other  way. 

Thousands  of  seekers  for  positions  go  after 
them  in  a  half-hearted,  dejected,  discouraged 
way.  They  are  convinced  at  the  beginning 
that  they  are  not  going  to  get  the  place. 

Scores  of  able  young  men  and  women 
among  my  students  have  asked  me  why  it 
was  they  never  got  a  raise  in  salary.  In  al- 
most every  instance  they  admitted  they  made 
the  request  expecting  to  be  refused. 

297 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
The  psychology  of  it  seems  to  be  this:  The 
world  demands  that  you  make  somewhat  of 
a  success  of  your  own  individual  personality 
before  asking  it  to  take  you  into  partnership  in 
its  business.  It  sees  that  the  timid,  self-con- 
scious man  is  not  succeeding  with  his  own 
mental  attitudes  and  automatically  concludes 
that  he  is  not  a  safe  risk. 

The  world  makes  way  for  the  self-confident 
man.  There  is  no  use  trying  to  stop  him.  No 
use  opposing  him.  If  you  dam  up  his  efforts 
in  one  direction  he  gathers  force  and  breaks 
over  in  another.  No  enemy  or  enemies  are 
great  enough  to  forestall  him.  Only  the  weak 
can  be  beaten  by  their  enemies.  The  self-con- 
fident man  plows  through  everything  and 
reaches  his  goal. 

The  next  step  essential  to  success  is: 
Think  of  yourself  as  two  persons,  the  real 
you  who  has  given  the  orders  for  doing  this 
thing,  and  your  other  self  which  must  carry 
them  out. 

Let  this  second  self  see  that  you  expect  it 
to  carry  out  these  orders.  Never  rescind  those 
orders  as  long  as  you  wish  to  accomplish  that 
particular  thing. 

Let  your  other  self  see  you  are  expecting 
298 


HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 
it  to  deliver  the  goods.     When  it  whines  and 
wants   to   beg   off   don't   listen.      It   is    your 
weaker  nature,  your  lazy  self, — that  negative 
part  that  acts  as  a  drag  to  the  ambitions. 

Right  here  let  me  tell  you  of  something 
which  has  been  most  effective  in  my  own  life. 

I  learned  how  this  lazy  other  self  was  always 
trying  to  get  out  of  work.  I  discovered  it 
could  think  up  the  most  plausible  excuses  for 
justifying  me.  I  found  that  if  I  left  any  loop- 
holes open  it  always  came  around  whispering 
how  some  other  time  would  do.  "Let's  just 
take  today  off, — one  more  day  of  vacation 
won't  do  any  harm  and  we'll  make  it  up  to- 


morrow." 


I  found  that  this  enemy  Inertia  was  trap- 
ping me  into  neglecting  the  things  I  had  set 
out  to  do,  and  after  a  few  years  I  was  dis- 
mayed to  realize  that  I  had  allowed  it  to  cheat 
me  out  of  my  greatest  desires.  So  I  devised 
a  trap  for  it.  Knowing  that  this  weaker  side 
of  myself  would  continue  to  creep  in  when- 
ever I  was  off  guard  and  beguile  me  away 
from  the  task  which  my  better  self  had  set,  I 
forestalled  its  activities. 

Whenever  I  had  fully  decided  to  do  some- 
thing worth  while,  and  while  my  best  self  was 

299 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
still  at  the  helm,  I  made  whatever  arrange- 
ments were  necessary  to  compel  me  to  accom- 
plish it. 

For  instance,  if  I  decided  to  write  a  book 
on  a  certain  subject  I  announced  that  fact  to 
my  classes,  giving  the  exact  date  when  it 
would  be  available. 

When  I  decided  to  organize  a  new  lecture, 
I  compelled  myself  to  do  it  by  engaging  the 
hall,  paying  a  deposit,  and  advertising  in  the 
newspapers.  The  greatest  undertaking  of  my 
life  I  literally  forced  myself  to  engage  in. 

After  years  of  study  and  preparation  I  still 
delayed,  giving  myself  the  excuse  that  I  need- 
ed more  time  in  which  to  make  the  final  ar- 
rangements. 

At  last  I  determined  to  inaugurate  it  on  a 
certain  date.  Ordinarily  I  would  have  given 
myself  about  four  years.  As  it  was,  I  gave 
myself  exactly  six  months  to  the  day. 

Hundreds  of  times  in  those  six  months  my 
weaker  self  rebelled,  declared  I  could  never 
do  it,  that  I  had  set  myself  to  do  the  impos- 
sible. 

Sometimes  when  the  task  threatened  to 
overwhelm  me  I  almost  succumbed,  but  the 
size  of  the  stake  I  had  deliberately  placed  in 
the  balance  was  so  great  I  dared  not. 

300 


HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 

I  now  know  that  the  development,  soul- 
growth  and  inspiration  I  gained  from  deliver- 
ing exactly  what  I  had  contracted,  on  the  ex- 
act date,  was  worth  more  than  anything  the 
other  three  years  of  half-work  could  have 
given  me. 

From  that  day  to  this  my  weaker  self  has 
never  been  able  to  re-establish  herself  in  her 
old  place  of  dominance.  To  be  sure,  she 
comes  back.  She  comes  back  with  the  same 
excuses  and  sometimes  they  sound  very  se- 
ductive. But,  as  the  farmer  says  in  regard 
to  breaking  a  horse:  "Break  his  will  once 
and  he  is  yours." 

I  still  tie  myself  up  with  contracts,  agree- 
ments, advertising  and  other  inexorable  task- 
masters. 

I  still  have  my  weaker  self  but  it  knows  its 
place. 

You  can  teach  yours  to  know  its  place. 
You  can  rise  above  it,  conquer  it  and  put  it 
beneath  your  feet. 

Take  for  granted  that  you  have  the  energy, 
courage,  enthusiasm  and  self-confidence  to  do 
what  you  want  to  do.  Place  yourself  in  a  po- 
sition where  others  expect  you  to  do  it,  and 
when  the  time  comes  you  will  find  yourself  in 
possession  of  the  qualities  with  which  to  do  it. 

301 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

Stop  thinking  poverty  if  you  wish  to  attract 
prosperity.  Refuse  to  give  a  place  in  your 
mind  to  the  things  you  fear. 

The  man  who  focuses  his  mind  on  ex- 
pectations of  failure,  poverty,  who  banishes 
ambitions,  hope,  and  gives  full  sway  to  doubt, 
fear  and  timidity,  inevitably  brings  these 
things  to  pass.  No  power  on  earth  can  make 
such  a  man  succeed.  No  power  on  earth  can 
always  keep  down  the  man  who  holds  the 
opposite  expectations  of  himself. 

Think  the  things  you  want;  furthermore 
don't  be  afraid  to  want.  There  is  a  world  of 
difference  between  wishing  and  wanting.  The 
"wishers"  usually  fail  while  the  "wanters" 
win. 

Thousands  of  lives  are  made  small,  pinched 
and  narrow  because  people  are  afraid  to  de- 
sire, to  fling  out  their  longings,  to  visualize 
them.  Instead  of  believing  we  can  get  the 
thing  we  desire  we  spend  our  time  exaggerat- 
ing our  restrictions  and  limitations. 

All  men  and  women  who  have  climbed  to 
the  top  of  life's  ladder  climbed  up  mental!; 
first 

Most  failures  are  due  to  the  fact  that  pec 
pie  are  not  willing  to  do  their  part  towan 

302 


HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 
making  their  dreams  come  true.     They  wish 
"to  have  their  cake  and  eat  it  too/'  to  take 
things  easy  and  have  the  good  things  of  life 
drop  into  their  laps  by  magic. 

Opportunities  always  come,  doors  are  al- 
ways opening,  the  road  is  always  made  clear 
to  the  man  or  woman  who  trusts  and  works. 
They  seldom  open  in  just  the  way  or  at  just 
the  time  he  expects,  but  they  open  often  to 
bigger  things  than  he  ever  dreamed  of.  Noth- 
ing comes  to  the  weak,  doubting  heart  save 
the  crumbs  of  existence. 

Someone  has  said,  "The  world  is  a  whis- 
pering gallery  which  sends  back  the  echo  of 
your  own  voice."  Someone  else  has  said,  "It 
is  a  mirror  which  reflects  the  face  it  sees  in 
it"  If  we  frown  it  frowns,  if  we  laugh  it 
laughs  back. 

One  of  the  saddest  things  is  this  fact,  that 
most  people  measure  themselves  by  their 
weaknesses  instead  of  by  their  strength.  They 
estimate  themselves  at  their  worst  instead  of 
their  best.  They  seem  to  feel  that  the  vision 
they  see  of  themselves  in  self-confident,  op- 
timistic, exalted  moments  is  a  figment  of  the 
imagination  and  not  their  real  selves. 

Very  few  people  realize  how  much  self- 
confidence  has  to  do  with  accomplishment 

303 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
Most  people  do  not  realize  that  it  is  a  creative 
force.  It  is  not  only  a  creative  force  but  one 
of  the  greatest  in  man, — so  great,  in  fact,  that 
man  accomplishes  in  almost  exact  proportion 
to  his  self-confidence. 

Keep  your  eyes  and  ears  open.  Do  not 
spend  time  and  energy  regretting  the  lack  of 
a  college  education.  A  college  education  is  a 
good  thing  but  the  greatest  good  it  does  is  not 
the  education  it  gives  you,  but  the  self-confi- 
dence it  instills.  The  root  of  many  a  man's 
failure  in  business  is  found  in  his  too  great 
sensitiveness  over  the  lack  of  a  higher  educa- 
tion. He  keeps  himself  reminded  that  he  has 
missed  something.  He  imagines,  as  we  all  do 
when  we  miss  anything,  that  it  is  much  great- 
er than  it  really  is. 

Meanwhile  it  is  not  the  college  man's  "learn- 
ing" which  gives  him  the  advantage  over  you, 
as  you  suppose,  but  the  consciousness  on  his 
part  that  he  has  spent  four  years  at  a  seat  of 
learning. 

If  a  hypnotist  could  put  you  to  sleep  for  ten 
minutes,  and  while  your  mind  was  subservient 
to  his,  give  you  the  conviction  that  you  had 
been  thru  college,  and  give  it  to  you  with  such 
force  that  you  would  always  thereafter  believe 

304 


HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 
it,  you  would  not  once  in  a  thousand  encoun- 
ters miss  the  education.  The  self-confident  air 
which  your  belief  had  given  you  would  cause 
everyone  to  assume  you  to  be  a  college  man 
and  they  would  accept  your  opinions  accord- 
ingly. 

If  you  are  sensitive  on  this  question  of  your 
lack  of  education,  assume  as  near  as  possible 
the  attitudes  of  an  educated  man. 

Never  tell  anyone  of  your  educational  de- 
ficiencies. Get  knowledge.  Educate  your- 
self, but  don't  let  the  fact  that  you  failed  to 
spend  four  years  on  a  campus  "get  your 
goat." 

Don't  let  the  fact  that  you  lack  social  stand- 
ing get  it  either.  Instead  of  regretting  that 
you  are  not  the  son  of  a  "best"  family  of  "blue 
bloods,"  start  a  best  family  of  your  own;  a 
family  of  such  good  red  blood  that  it  will  never 
need  traditions  to  bolster  it  up. 

Take  a  positive  attitude  toward  everything 
in  your  life.  Think  and  act  positively,  never 
negatively.  Instead  of  saying,  "I  can't  afford 
this,"  and  "We  mustn't  do  that  because  we 
are  going  to  need  this  money  next  year," 
spend  all  that  is  necessary,  and  say,  "I  will 
make  more  for  next  year." 

305 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

Those  who  are  constantly  retrenching,  who 
deny  themselves  here,  pinch  themselves  there 
and  skimp  somewhere  else,  are  always  poor. 
They  take  the  poverty  attitude,  the  negative 
attitude  toward  life.  Determine  to  make  more 
money  next  year.  Force  yourself  to  make 
more.  Save  a  certain  percentage  always  but 
don't  take  it  all  out  in  saving. 

Another  trouble  with  us  is  that  we  do  not 
concentrate.  We  want  things  but  we  do  not 
want  them  badly  enough  to  keep  working  for 
them.  Our  thoughts  are  truants.  They  go  off 
on  vacations.  They  want  to  play,  to  frivol,  to 
enjoy  themselves.  And  we  wind  up  where 
the  enjoyer  always  winds  up, — at  the  small 
end  of  things. 

We  wish  for  riches,  station,  fame,  but  we 
refuse  to  pay  for  them.  We  do  not  want  to 
earn  them.  We  want  them  to  fall  into  our 
laps. 

I  know  many  young  women,  and  middle- 
age  ones,  too,  who  say,  "How  I  long  to  have 
plenty  of  money,  a  beautiful  home;  I  adore 
lovely  things,  exquisite  possessions,  handsome 
cars  and  elegant  clothes.  Why  can't  I  have 
them?" 

The  answer  is  simple.  They  can't  have 
them  because  they  do  not  earn  them.  Only 

306 


HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 

one  such  woman  in  millions  has  them  fall  into 
her  lap  via  marriage.  The  rest  must  earn 
them. 

Thousands  of  American  women  are  earning 
them.  Female  brains  are  making  fortunes  to- 
day and  more  will  make  them  in  the  future. 

If  you  really  want  money,  and  want  it  badly 
enough,  that  desire  will  kindle  the  fire  neces- 
sary to  burn  your  way  to  it.  Don't  waste 
your  time  longing  to  lure  a  money-making 
male  into  marriage.  It  costs  too  much.  It 
usually  costs  more  than  it  is  worth.  Almost 
any  rich  wife  will  tell  you  so,  especially  if  she 
married  him  after  the  riches  were  made. 

People  fail  to  get  what  they  desire  because 
they  do  not  desire  it  hard  enough.  The  man 
or  woman  of  strong  desire  draws  everything 
toward  him  that  he  wants  because  a  strong  de- 
sire compels  action  and  action  is  what  gets 
everything.  The  man  of  strong  desire  draws 
not  only  things  but  people  to  him.  People 
instnctively  fall  in  with  his  suggestions.  They 
feel  drawn  rather  than  pushed  toward  him, 
for  such  is  the  power  of  desire.  Nothing  can 
withstand  it. 

Keep  the  fire  of  your  desire  burning  bright 
and  fierce  or  it  will  not  awaken  you  to  action. 

307 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

Allow  yourself  to  want  things  with  all  your 
might  and  they  will  in  turn  cause  you  to  do 
the  things  that  bring  them  to  you. 

We  have  heard  much  about  the  "mag- 
netic" individual;  the  kind  of  man  who  has 
the  power  to  attract  people  to  him.  These 
men  invariably  possess  great  will  power;  they 
are  the  active,  energetic,  forceful  men.  All 
great  minds  possess  this  kind  of  energy  to  a 
marked  degree. 

There  are  those  who  have  been  able  to  work 
their  will  upon  the  mass  of  people.  These 
men  are  seen  to  possess  a  strange  power,  but 
very  few  understand  it.  It  forces  and  com- 
pels; nothing  can  stand  in  its  way.  No  one 
ever  did  anything  or  got  anything  who  was 
not  filled  with  a  strong,  hungry  desire. 

The  man  who  feels  and  hungers  for  achieve- 
ment will  make  mighty  efforts  to  satisfy  that 
hunger.  Around  you  every  day  you  see  peo- 
ple who  go  to  lengths  to  satisfy  the  hunger 
for  food.  The  great  men  of  the  world  have 
felt  the  same  way  in  their  hunger  for  achieve- 
ment. All  "feelings"  that  incite  one  to  action 
of  any  kind  are  forms  of  desire.  Without 
desire  the  world  would  cease  absolutely  from 
action. 

308 


HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 
Preceding  every  action  is  desire,  either  con- 
scious or  unconscious.  Those  who  make  a 
virtue  of  renouncing  desire,  who  claim  to  have 
"conquered  desire  absolutely/'  are  acting  in 
response  to  desire  of  a  more  subtle  form. 
They  are  expressing  a  desire  not  to  do  other 
things. 

All  renunciation  is  the  result  of  desire,  just 
as  its  opposite  is  the  result  of  desire.  This  is 
a  fundamental  natural  law.  "Lack  of  desire" 
to  do  a  certain  thing  is  another  way  of  ex- 
pressing a  desire  to  pursue  an  opposite  course 
of  action.  And  so  it  goes.  Desire  is  at  the 
root  of  every  action  and  every  refraining  from 
action.  Nothing  has  ever  been  done,  created 
or  manifested  without  desire. 

A  keen,  ardent  desire  will  cut  away  the  un- 
dergrowth from  the  path  of  success.  It  will 
attract  you  to  the  things  and  the  people  neces- 
sary for  its  gratification.  It  will  bring  you 
directly  or  indirectly  to  the  circumstances, 
conditions  and  environments  necessary  to  your 
success.  It  will  seldom  bring  you  by  the  exact 
route  you  anticipated,  but  the  destination  is 
the  important  thing. 

The  man  of  will  power  is  wanted  every- 
where. The  world  is  crying  for  him. 

309 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
One  of  America's  most  famous  financiers 
said  recently,  "I  have  ten  twenty-five  thou- 
sand-dollar-a-year  jobs  for  men  of  will  power." 

When  asked  what  he  meant  by  a  man  of 
will  power  he  said,  "I  mean  a  man  filled  with 
the  force  of  action;  a  man  who  is  determined; 
who  keeps  his  mind  on  an  object  just  as  a  ma- 
chinist keeps  his  chisel  on  the  metal,  makes  it 
bite  in  deeper  and  deeper  until  the  desired 
impression  is  made." 

Cultivate  fixity  of  purpose.  To  hit  a  target 
you  must  see  it.  To  arrive  at  any  point  you 
must  keep  your  eye  on  it  and  go  straight  to- 
ward it.  Fix  your  will  upon  what  you  want; 
hold  it  there,  and  move  toward  it  in  as  straight 
a  line  as  possible.  Turn  the  spotlight  of  con- 
centration on  it  and  every  faculty  will  gravi- 
tate toward  its  accomplishment  just  as  the 
eyes  of  an  audience  follow  a  spotlight  on  the 
stage.  The  people  or  objects  outside  the  rim 
of  the  spotlight  are  not  seen.  You  can  de- 
velop concentration  to  the  point  where  inimi- 
cal or  opposing  matters  will  not  be  felt.  The 
spotlight  of  concentration  illumines  your  aim, 
magnifies  it,  brings  it  out  with  such  distinct- 
ness that  other  things  do  not  tempt  you. 

To  accomplish  anything,  "Cut  off  both  ends 
310 


HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 

and  set  it  afire  in  the  middle/'  is  the  way  one 
author  puts  it.  The  sun  shining  on  a  news- 
paper is  sufficiently  diffused — spread  out — 
that  nothing  happens,  but  concentrate  that 
sunshine  down  to  the  area  of  a  pin  point  and 
it  will  burn  a  hole  thru  it. 

To  get  anything  in  this  world  you  have  got 
to  burn  holes  through  the  things  that  inter- 
vene. You  must  center  not  only  your  body 
but  your  mind  on  the  thing. 

All  outward  activities  dissipate  your  ener- 
gies. Stop  losing  power  in  the  thinking  of 
wasteful  thoughts.  You  cannot  stop  the 
ceaseless  activities  of  the  mind  but  you  can 
direct  them  into  the  channels  that  are  worth 
while. 

Stop  yourself  sometime  when  you  are  hur- 
rying in  a  crowded  day's  work.  Note  what 
an  inner  whirlwind  of  excitement  is  going  on 
inside  your  mind. 

Walter  Dill  Scott  of  Northwestern  Univer- 
sity said,  "In  studying  the  lives  of  contem- 
porary business  men  two  facts  stand  out  pre- 
eminently. The  first  is  that  they  have  accom- 
plished what  to  most  of  us  seemed  impossible. 
Such  men  appear  as  giants  in  comparison  with 
whom  ordinary  men  sink  to  the  size  of  pig- 
mies. The  second  fact  is  that  they  never  seem 

311 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
rushed  for  time.    The  secret  of  it  seems  to  be 
that  they  require  less  time  because  their  con- 
centration accomplishes  in  one  hour  what  or- 
dinary men  take  three  hours  to  do." 

That  there  is  an  enormous  lack  of  proper 
application  of  energy  in  the  lives  of  most  men 
is  an  undoubted  fact.  What  you  need  is  not 
more  power  to  do  but  more  sensible  applica- 
tion of  the  powers  you  are  wasting.  You 
often  hear  a  big  business  man  spoken  of  as  "a 
human  dynamo."  We  are  impressed  by  his 
power,  by  his  ability  to  turn  out  a  stupendous 
amount  of  work  in  a  short  time.  We  exclaim 
at  his  capacity  for  carrying  in  his  mind  the  de- 
tails of  so  many  projects  and  wonder  how  he 
can  accomplish  so  much  in  so  many  direc- 
tions; how  he  can  pull  the  strings  of  so  many 
enterprises  without  ever  getting  lost  in  the 
maze  of  details.  One  thing  we  know  is  that 
he  never  seems  hurried. 

If  you  will  look  you  will  find  the  explana- 
tion. Nearly  every  word  and  act  of  this  man 
is  straight  to  the  point.  It  is  said  that  "a  cool 
brain  is  the  reserve  of  a  hot  box."  The  busi- 
ness of  the  day  is  carried  along  in  a  steady 
drive.  This  is  invariably  the  mark  of  the  big 
man.  The  man  who  chatters,  clatters  and  flut- 
ters usually  imagines  he  is  getting  over  a  lot  of 

312 


HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 

track,  but  he  wastes  far  more  steam  than  is 
necessary  in  doing  it. 

By  keeping  your  physical  and  mental  ener- 
gies riveted  on  what  you  want  to  do  there  can 
be  no  insurmountable  obstacles.  You  may 
not  be  able  to  do  it  just  the  way  you  planned, 
but  new  conceptions,  new  ways  and  methods 
will  come  to  you  just  as  surely  as  you  keep 
your  desire  and  concentration.  By  concentra- 
tion I  do  not  merely  mean  the  keeping  of  your 
surface  mind  on  your  ideal.  I  mean  building 
it  so  deeply  in  your  subconscious  that  if  I 
awakened  you  from  the  soundest  sleep  in  the 
middle  of  the  night  you  could  tell  me  before 
you  were  entirely  awake  what  that  aim  was. 

Ask  any  successful  man  if  his  success  came 
about  in  the  manner  in  which  he  expected 
and  he  will  say,  "No.  Many  of  the  specific 
plans  I  laid  were  frustrated,  but  my  determina- 
tion brought  from  somewhere  other  plans  that 
served  my  purpose  as  well  or  even  better  than 
those  I  had  originally  conceived/' 

When  the  will  is  focused  with  burning  in- 
tensity on  the  accomplishment  of  any  one 
thing,  ways  and  means  can  always  be  found 
for  accomplishing  it.  The  brain  that  is  kept 
at  work  on  one  aim  develops  unsuspected 
powers. 

313 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 
The  reason  for  this  is  purely  scientific.  In 
every  brain  there  are  millions  of  unused  brain 
cells — the  "reserves."  The  average  person, 
because  he  never  places  himself  in  jeopardy, 
never  has  the  use  of  these  reserves,  but  the 
man  who  calls  upon  his  brain  for  them  not 
only  finds  them  responding  to  his  needs,  but 
develops  new  ones* 

Brain  building  is  the  development  or  growth 
of  the  brain  cells  in  any  special  region  of  the 
brain.  As  you  know,  the  brain  is  divided  into 
sections  or  areas,  each  one  being  the  seat  of 
some  particular  faculty.  These  areas  are  the 
same  in  all  human  beings,  as  was  discovered 
by  Dr.  Gall,  a  brain  anatomist  of  France,  125 
years  ago.  It  has  long  been  recognized  that 
these  brain  centers  could  be  developed.  In 
some  instances  specialists,  whose  work  de- 
manded great  concentration,  developed  that 
particular  brain  area  to  such  an  extent  that 
slight  changes  in  the  outward  shape  and  size 
of  their  skulls  was  apparent.  The  bony  struc- 
ture of  the  skull  accommodates  itself  very 
gradually  and  in  ordinary  cases  the  change  is 
not  noticeable.* 


*  Note:     For  further  study  of  the  subject  of  brain  areas, 
see  "Brain  and  Personality,"  by  Thompson. 

314 


HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 
It  has  been  demonstrated  many  times  that 
a  man  may  literally  make  himself  over  men- 
tally. All  that  is  necessary  is  that  he  devote 
the  same  degree  of  attention,  patience  and 
work  to  the  subject  that  he  would  if  he  were 
attempting  to  develop  some  physical  muscle 
in  arm  or  hand,  for  instance. 

The  processes  for  developing  mental  and 
physical  muscle  are  almost  identical, — exer- 
cise, practice,  persistence. 

You  can  increase  any  brain  area,  therefore 
any  ability,  faculty  or  talent. 

Earnest  desire,  intensified  by  visualization, 
stimulates  the  brain  centers,  sends  the  blood 
to  that  area  and  automatically  causes  the  cre- 
ation of  new  cells. 

Concentration  is  attention  in  an  intensified 
form.  As  long  as  other  subjects  are  allowed 
to  enter  your  consciousness  they  will  weaken 
concentration  until  it  becomes  merely  interest. 
Only  by  inhibiting  all  outside  interests  can 
you  attain  the  concentration  which  is  effective. 

It  is  difficult  for  one  to  concentrate  his  at- 
tention for  any  great  length  of  time  on  any 
one  thing.  The  secret  of  concentration  is  to 
keep  pulling  it  back.  Whenever  it  wanders 
return  to  the  ideal  of  the  financial  success,  the 

315 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

professional  achievement,  the  ruling  passion, 
and  let  it  get  control  of  your  attention  again. 
The  mere  general  longing  for  success  is  not 
enough.  Nothing  indefinite  will  ever  get  you 
anywhere.  You  must  have  definite  interests 
clearly  defined.  The  mind  must  be  given 
something  specific,  important  and  tangible  to 
work  on. 

New  details  will  be  needed  constantly.  But 
if  you  really  want  this  thing,  your  desire  will 
furnish  those  details. 

Concentration  has  been  the  secret  back  of 
every  invention.  If  Thomas  A.  Edison  had 
given  his  attention  to  the  thousand  little  odds 
and  ends  that  the  rest  of  us  do,  how  far  do 
you  think  he  would  have  climbed?  How  far 
do  you  think  any  other  big  man  would  have 
climbed?  How  iar  do  you  think  you  are  go- 
ing to  climb,  if,  instead  of  conducting  a  spe- 
cialty shop,  you  run  a  mental  five-and-ten- 
cent  store? 

Do  not  allow  yourself  to  waste  time, 
strength  or  energy  reading  things  that  cannot 
serve  your  purpose.  Do  not  make  engage- 
ments that  will  dissipate  your  powers.  Be 
jealous  of  your  time. 

Franklin  said,  "Dost  thou  love  life?  Then 
do  not  squander  time  for  that  is  the  stuff  life 

316 


HOW  TO  MAKE  MONEY 
is  made  of."     Give  money  to  the  needy;  be 
generous  with  your  worldly  goods,  but  give 
no  man  your  time. 

Over  the  desk  of  a  prominent  executive  in 
New  York  City  is  this  statement,  "Be  brief. 
The  man  who  steals  my  time  is  the  most  dan- 
gerous thief." 

Conserve  your  energy  for  the  accomplish- 
ment of  your  great  aim  in  life.  Do  not  be- 
come narrow,  selfish  or  self-centered  but  let 
everyone  know  that  you  are  on  the  road  to 
some  place  in  particular  and  that  you  do  not 
intend  to  loiter  along  the  way.  Anyone  worth 
while  will  respect  you  all  the  more,  for  every- 
one worth  while  is  doing  the  same  himself. 

There  is  only  one  sure  way  to  get  away 
from  poverty  and  that  is  to  turn  your  back  on 
it.  Begin  this  minute  by  putting  the  poverty 
thought  out  of  your  mind.  Get  the  poverty 
expression  out  of  your  eyes,  the  poverty  tones 
out  of  your  voice,  the  poverty  limpness  out  of 
your  handshake. 

Mentally,  physically,  and  spiritually  erase, 
as  far  as  you  can,  marks  of  poverty.  Erase 
the  marks  of  poverty  from  your  clothing,  your 
surroundings,  your  bearing,  your  environment 
as  a  whole. 

317 


PRACTICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

Don't  give  up.  All  solids  and  metals  have 
what  is  called  a  melting  pot.  At  a  certain 
temperature  they  tend  to  liquify.  The  test  of 
you  is  your  melting  point,  the  place  where 
you  are  ready  to  quit,  to  lie  down,  to  give  up. 

Nearly  every  rich  man  will  tell  you  that 
every  big  triumph  was  preceded  by  places  of 
dark  discouragement  which,  had  he  heeded 
them,  would  have  marked  his  end.  The  dif- 
ference between  the  poor  man  and  the  rich 
man  is  usually  just  that.  One  gives  up  when 
things  look  dark.  The  other  shuts  his  eyes, 
grits  his  teeth,  clenches  his  fists  and  hangs  on. 


THE  END 


318 


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YC   15871 

TTcTBER^Y  LIBRARIES 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


